Wheel of Fire
by Echo Alexia
Summary: Entropy wins. Entropy always wins. With sincere apologies to anyone who had the original version favorited, a series of Thane and Shepard centric one-shots.
1. Kalahira's Domain

Kalahira's Domain

Garrus had never given Thane more than cursory acknowledgment until they'd touched down on Aequitas together. Shepard had been strip-mining her way through the Minos Wastelands when EDI had picked up the signal in the Fortis system.

While not the first time they'd been on the same shore party, it was the first time it was an issue.

They'd gone for the same sniper loft in the husk-ridden mine, and were left staring awkwardly at the cramped space.

"Well one of us is going to have to change." Garrus chuckled, slinging his sniper rifle over one shoulder.

"I'll take point," Thane offered, crawling through the small passage and dropping down to join Shepard.

While Thane preferred close-quarters combat, he recognized the necessity of sniper support. Especially when considering the only range Shepard deemed permissible was point-blank.

Bemusedly, he moved to join her when she let out a startled "Damn! Where'd you come from?"

"Vakarian recommended we change tactics," Thane offered.

Shepard stood out against the forsaken corridors, honeycombed in gold and shimmering all the colors of the sea. The biotic cornea around her ebbed and flowed like the tide as she held up a fist to call for a halt.

Mere seconds past before a bone-curdling wail echoed and reechoed off the dripping walls of the abandoned mine.

"Husks." she offered obviously. The first mangled body that pulled itself from a shaft fell from a sniper wound to the head and then they were swarming.

Thane rolled to cover, and Shepard let out a battlecry barely audible over the moans of those long dead. He loosed nine shots from his Locust, three for each abomination, their locations memorized from where he'd seen the shambling corpses start to emerge moments earlier.

A second glance to gather new targets saw two more fall in quick succession to Vakarian's rifle. It also saw Shepard, a blaze of gold and sapphire blurred to an angry teal, charging headfirst to crash against the husks like waves on a cliff face. Her tech shield burst a vibrant crimson, toppling the undead momentarily before they were on her again.

It was a fierce, vibrant display, kinetic barriers bursting and reactivating, armed and unarmed combat laying men to rest a second time...

It was reckless and unnecessary. Thane spent and ejected his thermal clip, reloading as he shouted, "Shepard, get to cover."

"I am cover!" Shepard snarled. She couldn't see shit. The caves were humid as hell, and she was in full body armor. (Not like Thane whose tight leather garb made him look like he was auditioning for Fornax) Her hair had been matted with sweat before the fight started, and it didn't help that the zombies seemed to explode on her out of spite. The caves smelled like ass, and the zombies smelled like zombies, and none of it did anything for her mood.

"Scratch one!" Garrus's voice echoed through the caverns, not that Shepard could see what he'd killed.

"You're exposed!" Thane growled a second later through the comm at her, his voice rattling her teeth in her skull.

"Your chest's exposed!" She snarled back brainlessly, smashing the butt of her shotgun into a husk and shattering its skull. Blood and bones sprayed across her, and both Garrus and Thane went awkwardly silent. Well… good.

A warbling moan pierced across the battlefield, as a macabre construct of guns and flesh slapped together by cybernetics, biotics, and sheer force of will shambled towards their chokehold in the center of the corridor.

"Garrus, scion," Shepard's order boomed across the comm.

"Scoped and dropped," he promised in reply. The horror staggered with his words, a blast from the loft above rattling its head. White and blue fluids mingled with chunks of its skull and ran down its crooked leg, but it pressed forward unphased.

A bulging arm fused with a gaping hand canon raised and pointed at the center of the room, where Shepard stood immobilized amidst the ocean of the dead, a pale mockery of Kalahira's domain.

Thane had to guard the rear and manage as Shepard's support, yet for every one he felled another took its place, and so the biotic blast hit her in full force. Her shields ruptured once more and she staggered, coated in the discharge of eezo the scions used to excess. Thane emptied his thermal clip a fourth time as Shepard bellowed into her comm.

"Garrus, scion!"

"I'm working on it!"

Groaning its displeasure, the scion shambled closer over chunks of its felled flesh and through its dripping blood. Gravity welled around it, deflecting blasts as it gurgled and raised its arm for another shot.

"Shepard." Thane hissed around clenched teeth. The way behind was cleared for a retreat to cover, a testament to his own biotics and the burning gun in his hand.

The scion fired, staggering Shepard, and a husk flung itself onto her back. Hollowed cheeks dripping saliva and blood stretched to sink into her head, when a shot from Thane's gun left the corpse at a lack of a head, let alone a mouth.

"Thane," Shepard growled back, smacking her hand on her omnitool with enough force for the haptic feedback to hurt. Her shields flared back into life and she climbed over a pile of corpses, shotgun blasting, to assault the construct herself.

By then most of the husks had met their end, and the three of them focused their fire to bring the creature crumbling down on top of itself.

Shepard let out a deep breath as Garrus jogged up to regroup from the sniper loft. Her shotgun dangled from her grasp, dripping eezo and blood, when she turned to fix Thane with glare. She was panting, or she would have yelled at him. Thane wasn't even breathing hard. Fucker.

"Your tactics are more than a little disquieting, Shepard." So he was pissed enough to pull out the last name card. She was pissed enough to punch him in his pretty face. No one gave her orders.

"Should I leave you two alone?" Garrus interrupted. Shepard snorted and shook her head, about to reply when another pissy wail rang through the catacombs. Fuck this. Shepard locked her shotgun onto her back.

"Uh, Shepard," Garrus blinked at her, mandibles flaring in confusion, "I'm all for diplomatic solutions, but I doubt they'll listen to-"

Shepard yanked the Cain off her back and pointed in down the corridor, where the wailing was growing louder. Garrus dove for cover and Thane closed his eyes as she pulled the trigger. The resulting blast ricocheted the entire complex.

"-reason." He finished.

"Shepard," Miranda's voice came in over their frequency, from where she was safely back on the Normandy, "Tell me Edi is joking, and you didn't just destroy the indoctrination device with an untested nuclear weapon."

"Now it's a tested nuclear weapon," Shepard shrugged, then felt stupid. Miranda had an audio feed, not a video one.

"Impressive," Garrus murmured.

Shepard chuckled. "Sometimes you get lucky,"

They grinned at each other until Miranda continued, "Well I hope you're happy, because you completely destabilized the mine. You've got less than a minute before I have to start a second Lazarus Project."

"I really wish you'd told me that sooner," Shepard snarled. The three of them spun and ran for the exit, sliding down halls, vaulting over crates, and trying not to trip on the husks they'd killed to get here. Shepard purposefully ran next to Garrus; the small spiteful act was soothing. She knew she'd be too tired to fight with Thane when they got back to the Normandy, and would just want a shower and a nap. By the time she woke up, she wouldn't be angry anymore, so she planned ahead.

Of course, running next to Garrus meant Thane wasn't there to catch her when she slipped on a chunk of bone glazed with blood, and went careening into a shaft that led deeper into the mine. "Damnit!" She screamed what she felt were adequate famous last words, before everything went black.

Garrus echoed her cry when he realized his armor was too large for him to fit down the same shaft. Thane twisted around him and dove after her without hesitation. His hand managed to grab the piping as he did so, and slowed his descent down the tunnel. The lighting above dimmed and then died, leaving him in a black that rivaled the dark between the stars.

By Arashu's grace, he landed on flat ground, and not on her warrior angel. "Shepard?" He called into the dark, and nictated both sets of eyelids. He brought up his omnitool, invisible to any who could not see bioluminescence, and scanned where they'd fallen. The twisting corridors of the mine revealed no secrets, Shepard failed to respond, and the gods were silent.

Shepard groaned, an annoying light flashed in her face and refused to move when she batted her hand in its general direction. It took her longer than she would have liked to realize she couldn't 'bat away' light, and when she did, she swore and struggled to sit up.

"Amonkira reveals you," Thane's voice echoed bemusedly in her ears.

"Your flashlight reveals me," She muttered at him, smacking away his helping hands. Her head was killing her. "Damn, how much did I drink?"

"For once, your unconscious state was not brought about by inebriation."

"Fuck you."

"A tempting offer."

"… you did not just say that." Shepard massaged the migraine growing in the back of her skull, and glanced around. She couldn't see shit. Shepard blindly smacked at her omnitool, and dropped two techmines before she managed to turn on her flashlight. Random corridors greeted her, with no guiding lights or wall maps. "Where are we? Where's the exit?"

"Several meters above us, collapsed in rubble before you awoke."

"Oh good." Shepard brought up their frequency, and turned on her comm. "Shepard to Normandy. Come in Normandy." Static greeted her, and she frowned. Thane was staring at her with a small smirk on his face. Asshole.

Shepard turned away from him and took a step forward, intent to start scouting out the area, when white hot pain seared up her leg and burst into a thousand stars in her skull. She collapsed to the ground, swearing and cursing and clutching her leg. She must have broken her ankle in the fall. Thanks to her skeletal lattice, it would heal in a few days, but for now she was useless.

Thane knelt down next to her, but knew better than to touch her, "Do you need me to carry you?"

"Please, I'd crush your skinny ass."

"A tempting-"

"Don't." Shepard took a deep breath and resisted the urge to rub at the injury. Thane was most certainly not going to carry her out of here. Garrus would never let her hear the end of it. She waved her flashlight around her for a makeshift crutch and found nothing, until she settled on Thane and the sniper rifle strapped to his back. Genius.

She almost told him to 'give her his gun' until she caught herself. Instead she snatched it off his back without warning. The rifle expanded to its normal state, and Shepard flicked on the safety and pressed it into the ground. Staggering to her feet, she smiled smugly to herself.

Thane had pursued his lips and was squinting his eyes, staring at her with what she took to be his, 'Siha, you are such a dumbass,' look.

Picking a completely random corridor, Shepard limped towards the middle passageway. Thane walked beside her with his hands locked behind his unerringly straight back. He apparently wasn't going to dignify her genius with a comment. When they ended up back in the same room, the shaft they'd fallen through waiting politely in the corner, he finally spoke up. "Your sense of direction is most disquieting, Siha."

"I don't see you offering any suggestions," Shepard rolled her eyes, hopping on her make-shift gun crutch. "You think you know the way out?"

"… perhaps." He smirked down at her. Shepard was tempted to lift the sniper and shoot him in the foot with it to make them even.

"You just want me to wear myself out so you can carry me." She huffed.

"For someone who missed the 'Exit' sign above the southern passageway, you are very perceptive, Siha." Shepard glared at him, the effect sorely dampened by her constant bouncing. After she grew tired of feeling like she was having a staring contest on a pogo-stick, she glanced at the southern passageway. With an awkward wobble, she shined her omnitool flashlight at it. There wasn't an 'Exit' sign.

"Asshat," Shepard tried to suppress a laugh and ended up snorting instead. It was terribly unsexy, like most (all) of what she did, but Thane never seemed to care. "Let's just… let's sit down for a bit," Shepard flopped to the ground and dropped the rifle next to her.

"I agree. We've made a great deal of progress." Thane teased, sitting cross-legged beside her.

"You think maybe someone will just come find us?" She groaned, falling back onto the ground and throwing her hand over her eyes. She heard him shuffle to sit behind her, before he pulled her head into his lap and started massaging away her migraine. Fucked if she knew how he could always tell.

"It's always a possibility." He allotted, scaled fingers cool against her skull. Shepard sighed.

"That means no."

"It means no."

Shepard rolled her head to the side and buried it in his leg. One advantage of him being an assassin was that he knew every human pressure point, and even an idle massage was amazingly relaxing. Maybe she'd just close her eyes for a minute…

An angry wail woke her up an indefinite amount of time later and brought her migraine back at full strength. "Damn, Thane, if you want me to move just say so."

"While both my legs are in excruciating pain, I cannot pitch my voice in such a fashion." He shifted out from under her as she struggled to sit upright. "You may wish to arm yourself."

"You've gotta be shitting me." Shepard mumbled, activating her assault armor and pulling her shotgun off her back. He was in pain? She'd fallen asleep on a shotgun.

Thane rubbed feeling back in his legs, and started gathering dark energy for a biotic attack. He grinned over his shoulder at her, "No, I am not shitting you."

Shepard debated standing, and then decided against it. It looked like she was immobile cover like she'd claimed. She propped her shotgun against her shoulder, and waited for the first husk to appear.

Thane beat her to it. The first husk came screaming out the tunnel Shepard knew was nothing more than a loop, because they'd walked it earlier. How the zombies had managed to get there was beyond her. Thane flung the creature back with a biotic push, and a second husk followed in its footsteps. It was burning red and a testament to why she never used incendiary rounds on zombies. Then you just had flaming zombies.

His Locust and biotics kept the creatures back. None of them made it within her range, which was to say, none of them were crawling on top of her. Thane had forced them back into the tunnel, with his strange acrobatic combat style that seemed more like dancing than fighting. Shepard tapped her foot. She wanted to kill something.

Trying to distract him so a husk would slip past, she let out a loud catcall. He didn't pause, didn't even seem to notice. Shepard sighed loudly and pulled her knees up to her chest, draping her arms across them. A wicked idea struck her, and she kept the whistles up and shouted, "Take off your top!"

She'd expected him to ignore her, or slip up. She hadn't expected him to flip over a husk, fling his jacket off, and shoot the creature in the back of its head. His jacket fluttered and toppled down in front of her. Shepard blinked in shock, then let out a wild cheer and dissolved into a fit of giggles.

They slowed to a trickle and then stopped all together. She hadn't killed a single one, and she didn't care. Thane brushed off imaginary dust, and glanced at his jacket. Shepard scrambled forward and snatched it up before he could retrieve it.

"Siha…" He clipped his pistol back onto his belt, and walked up to stare down at her. "I feel as though I've more than earned my clothing back."

"You'll have to trade me for it."

"… My other layer is a single piece."

"So?"

"My _only_ other layer."

"Oh." She fingered the leather idly, and locked her shotgun back onto its holster. "Well, you can't expect to sell your body and keep your dignity."

"… Siha…"

"Look at it this way, only your body will be naked. Your soul is safe."

"The level of faulty reasoning you can pack into a single conversation never ceases to amaze me," He sat down and seemed content to abandon his jacket, which he knew took all the fun out of keeping it. Shepard flung it at him and rolled her eyes. As he was easing back into it, he coughed. Then didn't stop coughing.

"… Thane?"

"I'm fine Sih-" a cough cut off his words, strangled and wet. Shepard crawled over to him in a panic, not knowing what to do. Her hands hovered over him ineffectually; her mind froze. She was out of medigel. She couldn't even repair her ankle. What did she do? Damnit, what was she supposed to do?

Shit. Shit. Shit. He covered his mouth as he coughed, and blood freckled across his palm. Shit. Not here, not another attack. They were already six feet under, and she didn't appreciate the fucking irony. She clawed at his at his jacket, pulling it back off, and unzipped his vest, trying to give him room to breathe. Chakwas had said there was a medical reason for his man-cleavage, and she had better not have been joking.

Shepard cupped his face in her hands and forced him to stare at her. He couldn't tell her anything. He couldn't get enough air to breathe, let alone talk. What the fuck was she thinking?

Shepard clawed through her memory and cursed herself for being a human. Pulse, but insufficient respiratory effort… artificial respiration. Shepard crawled into his lap and kissed him, breathing for him. He stiffened, shocked, then relaxed as much as he could. She struggled to match their patterns, breathing out when he breathed in, breathing in when he breathed out and eventually worked out a rhythm.

She didn't know how much time had passed, she didn't want to keep track. She just stayed in his lap, holding him and making him breathe. Everything else dissolved. Nothing else was important. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

She felt his hands finally wrap around her waist, and let herself relax. He wasn't suffocating. He could breathe again. She hated this. Damnit, she hated this. It wasn't a fair fight. It wasn't a battle she could win. Some day she was going to try to breathe for him, and he wasn't going to breathe back.

A scaled thumb ran over the corner of her eye. She wasn't even aware they'd started to water. The tears wouldn't fall. They never did. Breathe in, breathe out.

"Shepard! Thank the spirits I found you," Garrus's voice broke through the heavy silence, and his omnitool's flashlight settled on the two of them. "I-" He stopped, seeing them wrapped around each other and Thane's jacket tossed aside, "'ll just go out the way I came in." He dropped a flare at the right exit and scuttled out.

They barely noticed him, save for a nagging feeling that they had to leave now. Eventually, they pulled away from each other, but only so she could wrap her arms around his shoulders and bury her face in his neck. Selfishly, she felt like she was the one who couldn't breathe. "The sea is still waiting," Thane reassured her, "I am still here."


	2. Demons and Warrior Angels

Demons and Warrior Angels

"No one from Urdnot," Shepard whispered, patting the varren whose head lay nestled in her lap. It growled whenever Morinth drew too close.

"Shepard, you should know by now I'm not interested in names," Morinth purred, the firelight of the camp's bonfire cast across her face. "Unless yours is on the table…" She offered as she always did.

"No one from Urdnot," Shepard shot her a glare, and the varren growled deep in its throat as it sensed her agitation. "Go get your fix." She hissed as if Morinth were little more than a junkie off its high, and not the genetic destiny of her race.

Morinth spun in a rage, about to stalk away with a purposeful sway when she recalled her cover. The krogan's leader, a powerful scarred creature with a hide as red as human blood, had invited Shepard to spend the night on Tuchanka. She, the drell, the young krogan, and Shepard had stayed, while the rest of her mundane crew was too afraid or boring to accept.

Morinth straightened to her mother's frigid, emotionless posture, and silently cursed the drell. If he'd not come, she might have been able to get away with being herself for the evening. Morinth couldn't imagine how she could attract any of the primal krogans as Samara. The woman scorned all emotion… had scorned all emotion, a small smile crossed Morinth's face.

Morinth idly circled the crumbling camp, walking with the form of her mother. The ruins, to her, were a testament to the power of the krogan, none of whom paid her any mind. They had been and still were adverse to the concept of outsiders on their home world. The only ones they seemed to accept were Grunt, and Shepard herself, after they had slain the thresher maw.

Morinth resisted the urge to lick her lips. Such power, so close and yet so far. She wished she could have been present for what she was sure had been a fierce battle, but Shepard had taken the salarian as Grunt's krantt. The krogan had been too stunned to form a conclusion.

After her third lap around the camp, she gave up. Too much had happened and the krogan were more interested in relieving their tension through combat than… other pursuits.

She took a seat beside the drell, who was watching the entire festival as impassively as Morinth imagined her mother would. Shepard had taken her varren to the fighting pits, where she was surrounded by krogan roaring at her opponent, with his own fans doing the same.

"Quite the spectacle, wouldn't you say?" The drell spoke up beside her. Morinth glanced at him, curious. The drell almost never spoke, and if she had to guess, she would have said the empty glass in his hands was to blame for his loose tongue. She'd seen Shepard forcing the ryncol on him earlier.

"It is reprehensible." Portraying her mother was never difficult; she had only to say the opposite of what she felt. "Living beings should never be pitted against one another for entertainment."

"True enough," He didn't seem phased at all. "But they are creatures of such pure instinct, their souls seem blameless."

"Instinct is nothing without the strength to temper it." She countered easily. It was something she personally believed in, to an extent. She could have cared less if her victims 'tempered' themselves, but she knew the ability to resist her drives was the only reason Shepard let her live. Morinth frowned suddenly, annoyed at her own phrasing. As if Shepard could stop her from doing anything.

The frown either fit well with her words, or Krios had had too much to drink to notice. He tilted his head in agreement, and Morinth was struck with a flash of inspiration.

None of the krogan would be interested in her mother, but Krios might be.

"Is this bloodshed why you chose to attend?" The trainer was retrieving his injured varren from the pit, while Shepard was hassling krogans for her winnings. The Urdnot leader roared with approval from the main firepit, where Grunt sat beside him listening to tales of the clan's former glory.

"No," He set his empty glass aside to focus on their conversation. "I enjoy experiencing other cultures… though I usually do so from the shadows."

"I spent much of my Justicar training learning of the other races, should I encounter them on my quest," Morinth kept the smile from her face. She'd promised she wouldn't cause any trouble for the crew, but her body craved what Shepard constantly denied her. She'd allowed her the chance to feed tonight, on anyone who wasn't Urdnot… at an Urdnot clan gathering.

The drell fit the bill, and would take the edge off nicely. It would be a nice parting gift, Morinth decided. If she couldn't have Shepard, she'd have the next best thing: her lover. Besides, she'd never had a drell before. "Drell were… not a part of my studies."

"Few outside the hanar take an interest in my race." His voice was painfully bland. Morinth couldn't help but wonder what Shepard saw in him.

"I would not protest to further enlightenment." She rested her hands on her folded knees in her mother's open posture.

"I fear I am not an apt example…" He stopped focusing on her to watch Shepard. The Urdnot warlord – Wrex? – had stood from the campfire to come over to her. The two had locked their hands and were trying to shove each other off balance. The krogan around them were cheering madly. "I spent much of my life away from my own kind." Wrex tossed Shepard aside like a rag doll. The cheers grew to a roar.

"I have spent four-hundred years away from mine." Morinth was glad Shepard was distracted. She was not glad Krios was distracted by Shepard.

"The gods smile on such tenacity." That got his attention. Finally.

"Perhaps," Shepard crawled out of a pile of rubble and glowed with biotic energy. Wrex had turned around to laugh with a fellow krogan, when she rushed forward and crashed into his back in a full biotic push. The two of them went flying, and were quickly encircled with krogan. "Such thoughts are little comfort in the dead of night."

"Yet your quest is complete," He waved a wild hand, "You could leave this life behind with a clear conscience. Forgive my presumption, but I feel you remain because you are Whole."

"Just? Yes. Whole? … I am not so certain, but I appreciate your words." Morinth glanced at the pile of krogan, which had somehow turned into an all-out clan brawl. Varren circled and snapped at their masters, darting under feet and occasionally getting trampled. She wanted so badly to participate. Instead she stood up with her mother's stiffness, forcing uncertainty onto her face. "I wish to retire. Might you walk with me?"

"Of course," He stumbled to his feet, unsteady on his own legs, posture ruined. Morinth was infinitely pleased. Shepard must have been forcing drinks on him all night.

Aside from the occasional glare, the krogan ignored them as they made their way back to the shuttle. Krios looked to be trying to maintain his usual stride, and failing miserably. Rather than his hands locked behind his back, each limply held the opposite sleeve. It gave the awkward illusion that he was trying to pull his jacket off, and sent a thrill through her. Perhaps the tight leather covering his muscled form was why Shepard was interested in someone so painfully dull.

"Samara, why did you opt to-…" He trailed off as they climbed the stairs to the Kodaik, then seemed to forget what he was saying.

"I wished to speak with you." Morinth steered him towards the Kodaik, releasing the pressure door. Shepard would sleep with the krogan. Krios would be hers, and she could leave on the shuttle to go anywhere in the galaxy she wanted.

"Was there something else you wanted to ask me?" Her heels clicked on the ground as she stalked towards him, such easy prey without a witness in sight. She hadn't dined on anyone since Nef, in all her artist glory.

"No questions, more of a confession." She gestured to the shuttle as innocently as possible to show that it was personal. Krios went inside without question. They always did. She shut the door behind her. "I feel as though we share a connection."

Krios eased himself unsteadily into a seat, falling more than sitting. Morinth sat beside him. "Well, few others seem to understand the need to reflect on the events of the day."

"That is part, but not all of what I meant. We both seek to leave the universe a brighter place, and understand the need for swift justice." That was what her mother always called it. Mentally, Morinth sneered. Krios blinked both sets of eyelids, giving her a hazy, oblivious stare. She reached out to wrap her biotics around his mind, and met with little resistance. She preferred when her victims minds were clear and willing, but inebriated was the only way she'd have a chance with the assassin.

"We have… a connection." She repeated, weaving the words into his mind, wrapping them into every fiber of his conscious thoughts. It was almost a pity it was so easy; she preferred the hunt.

"Perhaps." He was hardly focusing on her. Morinth was confused, and more than a little annoyed. He should have been a drooling slave, not a drunk fool.

"We understand each other," She insisted; her eyes went black, "My Code does not leave me Whole, but you could." He blinked again, his eyes were glazed, but she wasn't sure if it was with the mental connection she'd forced on him, or because he'd had so much ryncol. "Say you'll make me Whole. Love me. Kill for me. Anything I want."

Morinth waited. Nothing happened. He didn't say anything. He was staring idly at a point beyond her shoulder. That didn't make any-…. Morinth released him, furious.

He'd solipsismed the fuck out of here. Morinth stood and sneered down at him. The only person she'd managed to corner had gone and cornered himself in his own mind. She needed someone. Something. It had been months. Her very mind itched with craving, the frustrated desire that pulsed through her was enough to make her ache. It had been so long, and she was used to feeding regularly. She could still taste the sacrifices she'd had brought to her when she'd taken over that pathetic village, until her mother had uprooted all her fun. She spun on her heel, snarling, and spun straight into a fist.

The force of the blow sent her flying, when biotic energy wrapped around her and yanked her back. An armored knee took her full in the chest, and an uppercut flung her back again before she'd managed to throw up a barrier.

Hands shimmering with their own biotic energy reached through her barrier and gripped her by the rim of her suit. Red eyes with whirling cybernetic lenses fixed on her with all the fire of the Halls of Athame before a skull smashed into hers and made her see spots.

When her vision came back to her, her breath left her. Shepard's boot was pressed tight to her throat. Her expression wasn't furious, remorseful, or determined. It was cold and empty, impassively watching her suffocate with as much interest as if she were crushing a bug beneath her heel.

It struck Morinth as a delightful irony that it was the man she'd tried to kill who saved her. "Siha, what has overcome you!" A scaled hand wrapped around Shepard's arm, but the Spectre didn't budge, or take her eyes off Morinth's. Yet another thing they had in common. They both liked to watch the life fade from their victim's eyes. "Siha!" Krios all but shouted. Shepard slowly eased her foot off Morinth's throat, but Morinth stayed on the ground.

"Go back to camp, Thane." Shepard whispered.

"… Are you certain?"

"Go. Back. To. The. Camp." With a lingering glance at both of them, he complied.

Morinth coiled in on herself, waiting to spring if Shepard resumed her attack. The silence, the sheer stillness of the moment was oppressive. Morinth was a killer. She could read other killers. The decision to kill or not to kill came quickly, and everything that occurred afterwards was pretense. Shepard, she realized long ago, was a killer she couldn't read.

"Go." Morinth stood slowly, easing her way around the transport until she reached the door. "Don't come back until you've had your fix." Morinth blinked, stunned. That was it? Seconds ago she'd been ready to kill her, and now she was telling her to go out and kill? "You're useless to me like this." Shepard shouldered past her and left the shuttle without a backwards glance.

The stillness was no less oppressive, and left her wondering who the real demon was.

* * *

"May I have a moment of your time?" Krios said from the door to her room, some days later.

"Of course, Krios. Join me." She was seated in her mother's usual cross-legged pose, looking for all intense and purpose like she was meditating while staring out at open space. In reality, her earpiece was placing music and she'd had her omnitool open browsing the extranet.

He sat beside her, and fixed her with an intense stare, but otherwise said nothing. Perhaps he wanted to mediate with her. The thought annoyed Morinth, as it meant she had to pretend to meditate until he left.

"The fault lies with me," He said after what felt like hours, but may have only been a few minutes.

"I'm sorry?"

"Do not be," He waved her apology away as if it had been genuine. "As I said, it is my own fault for being so introspective. I had no reason to consider the other members of Shepard's crew, but reflecting on you now, I can see the subtle differences between you and your mother."

Morinth felt her throat dry up on her, turning any words she might have spoken to sand. Krios didn't seem to notice her anxiety or care.

"You asked about my race. We have perfect memories, which we can relive at our choosing. It is… difficult to control at times. I'm afraid I was distracted by my memories, when you were… propositioning me." He smirked, bemused, either at the memory or the way Morinth struggled not to squirm beneath his gaze. "While flattered, I'm afraid I have eyes for another."

"I'm sorry; I don't understand what you mean, Sere Krios." She kept up her mother's voice and her mother's poise, despite being well aware it was probably pointless now.

"Of course not," He rocked back on the balls of his feet and stood up, brushing off imaginary dust. "Samara," He dragged the name out as long as he could before it became comic, "You were right. We do have a connection, but not the one of which you spoke. We both know what it is to kill, and take pleasure in the act." He locked his hands behind his back, his posture flawless once again as he turned to leave. "But I feel I have to tell you, if you ever make Shepard the offer you made me, you'll find out how alike we really are."

Morinth waited until the door had closed behind him before she stood, and wandered to the corner of the room. She took a seat on the twisting sofa, and crossed one leg over the other, letting her foot sway idly. She supposed she could see why Shepard liked him after all.


	3. Wholly Annoyed

Wholly Annoyed

Thane lay in the vents of the Citadel, his sniper rifle trained on the woman who'd made him Whole again. He watched her walk across the plaza, her determined stride unhampered by the weight of her task. She went out of her way to help her friends, her team, even total strangers. So it confused him that now she was going out of her way to ruin her best friend.

Revenge brought only ruin, tore the soul further from the body, and left a person disconnected. He'd shared the burdens his soul bore with her, all the deaths he'd put on his conscience and spent his days atoning from. He would not wish such things on anyone, and here she wished them on Vakarian.

He watched her signal the turian over, a man with the look of one already dead. He had hoped, that sometime in the midst of this damned quest, that she would question Vakarian's motives. Call him out on rage untempered by logic or reason.

She'd stayed silent. Worse, she'd encouraged him, the gleam in her red eyes as vindictive as his.

And now Vakarian waited on the balcony opposite him, his scope trained on Shepard as she blocked his shot. _Laser dot trembles on the skull_. Memories flashed behind his eyes of a woman who'd blocked his shot and changed his life forever, and already he knew it would not be the same. Shepard smirked, a devil's expression on an angel's face, and stepped out of the way. _Laser dot dances away_.

The turian flew backwards from the force of the blow, blue blood spraying across the otherwise pristine floor of the plaza, as Shepard turned on her heel and walked away.

The return the Normandy was weighted down by a silence as heavy as the burden about his heart. Vakarian and Shepard had no such reservations, theirs was a comfortable silence. When they'd returned to the Normandy, they'd locked arms in a brief embrace and returned to their quarters as if no travesty had occurred.

Gripped by the sudden need for clarity, Thane retired to his quarters and lost himself in his memories and the whispers of the gods.

"Got a minute?" Shepard's cheerful voice interrupted his meditations an indefinite amount of time later. Thane pushed away the temptation to decline.

"Of course, Shepard. Join me."

A tray clattered unceremoniously onto the table in front of him. "Thought you might be hungry, and I know you don't like to eat in the mess," She explained, pulling up her chair and placing down a tray of her own.

He gave a slight incline of his head in thanks, devoid of appetite.

"What were you meditating about?" Shepard put her bottle against the edge of table and smacked her palm down on it. The cap flew through the air and clattered to the ground in the middle of the room.

"The events of the day." His eyes fixated on the cap on the floor, the only imperfection in his small quarters. Shepard threw her feet up onto the table, bouncing the trays, and took a long drink from her beverage, the alcohol content he could only guess at. He'd seen her go drink for drink with Grunt over krogan ryncol.

"Talk to Kolyat?" She licked her finger and swirled it around the edge of her glass, starting up a grating whistle.

"Not since we left him in Bailey's care." Thane moved his hands from off the table and rested them in his lap. It meant exposing his neck, an expression of trust in his culture, but it allowed him to channel a light pull of biotic energy out of her line of sight. He wrapped it around the cap and pulled it towards him off the floor.

"You okay with the way things turned out?" She set her glass down too hard, causing the liquid to slosh over and onto the table.

"Yes. He will be able to repay his debt to society and rethink his actions," Thane caught the cap and slipped into his jacket pocket. His eyes twitched on the spill, and he glanced down at their trays. She hadn't brought any napkins. _Red eyes drift down, a stain of emerald on white. Invokes the wrath of the gods on her own blunder. Pale hands pull away ruined fabric, pale skin beneath_- She never brought any napkins.

"Thane?" Shepard was waving her hand blithely in front of him, "Normandy to Thane, come in Thane."

"My apologies," Thane gave himself a mental shake. Shepard was staring at him obliviously, so at least his solipsism hadn't been verbal.

"Thinking about Irikah?" She mumbled sagely, stabbing her fork into the bowl on her tray. Shepard twisted it half-heartedly and began to inhale her food. "Kasumi got Gardner to make ramen," She garbled around a mouthful of noodles.

"Not-no…" He tried not to wince. Gods, what had he been thinking?

"Koahat?" she guessed, shoveling ramen into her mouth without pause for breath.

"No." He smirked.

Shepard frowned over her bowl, "Tho whut were you thinging abou?"

His translator screamed at him, turning her words into alien mumbles. He tiled his head to the side, though he could have easily guessed what she'd said. "My apologies Shepard, but I'm afraid I've yet to install 'ramen' on my translator."

Shepard rolled her eyes and finished her bowl with alarming haste, then glanced at his untouched tray. "Not hungry?'

"Not particularly."

"Or you just don't like ramen."

"That is also a possibility," He tilted his head to the side. The light glinted off her spill from this angle... "Though I feel I must add, your… display was hardly encouraging."

"So what you're saying is you don't want your ramen," She was staring at his food as intently as he was staring at her spill.

"That's what I'm-" Shepard reached out and snatched his bowl, burying her fork in the noodles, "-saying."

"Tho I uas thinging," Shepard said through her food, "Al we'ur on hh Thididel," She paused to take a drink, then shoveled more noodles into her mouth before she kept talking, "Thu en Koahat thoud ang out."

Thane blinked. He hadn't understood a word. He nodded, as that seemed like a safe answer without dignifying her garble with an actual reply.

"You have no idea what I just said." How was her bowl already empty?

"I have no idea what you just said."

"You gonna tell me what you were meditating about?"

"It's somewhat personal."

"But not totally personal."

"…" He blinked dryly at her.

Shepard ignored his displeasure. Subtly was lost on her. She probed her elbows rudely on the table and leaned over her tray towards him. "Tell me."

"Has anyone told you you have a rather… forceful personality?"

"Maybe," She shrugged, "Anyone ever tell you you're evasive?"

"Why did you permit Vakarian to murder Sidonis?" He knitted his fingers together and rested his elbows on the table, posture defensive.

Shepard blinked, taken aback, but only briefly. "I didn't 'permit' him; I helped him, besides the bastard had it coming."

"But that was not for us to decide. Only the gods can judge the worth of a man's soul."

Shepard snorted, "Well I'm glad you think so highly of me."

"That was not my implication," He clenched his hands together and held his face tight, "One evil does not redeem another, but Sidonis may have been able to redeem himself."

"No." Shepard said firmly, simply.

"No one can see the future."

"I don't need to. There's no coming back from that. He was supposed to be watching Garrus's back, and instead he stabbed him in it, all so he could get away with his pathetic life. He was a traitor and a coward, and I'm not sad his gone."

"Shepard… I feel as though Vakarian was not the only who sought revenge today."

"It wasn't revenge. It was justice," She frowned at him, then started tapping her fingers on the table. It was offbeat and set to no particular rhythm, just as if not more grating than her glass-whistling. "Where's all this doubt coming from, Thane? You didn't say anything when I let Jacob's father off himself."

"Because he chose to do so. In his eyes, it was redemption. Forgive me; I am your arm without reservation, but as your friend…"

"As my friend, you want me to be someone I'm not." He started to protest, but something made him stop. His earlier comparison mocked him. Even now, sunset eyes stared at him with indignation. Shepard was not Irikah. Was nothing like Irikah. Had never been anything like Irikah.

"You're right." He let his hands dropped and folded them along his arms. Irikah left him to his meditations, Shepard burst on in them. Irikah brought peace, Shepard brought chaos. And he couldn't get either one out of his head. "I should judge you on your own virtues, not what I feel they should be."

"Oh… okay," Shepard rubbed the back of her neck, looking confused, "Thanks, I guess…" She glanced around awkwardly… for all of a second. Her elbows propped themselves up on the table and she stared at him luridly. "So what are my virtues?"


	4. Perfect Weapon

Perfect Weapon

A thunder of steps, that had come to remind him of the endless storms of Kahje, sounded along with the whoosh of the doors to Life Support. Also like Kahje was the stream of humid air that followed until the doors were sealed once more.

A crisp, clean smell not unlike fallen rain pervaded his senses. The gentle pull of the drive core was the final addition to the illusion that he would have to break.

"Do you need something?" He'd hoped to be alone with his meditations, back in Irikah's arms with Kolyat's laughter, and he couldn't help the gruffness of his voice. The rest of the crew was enjoying their shore leave on Bekenstein. A beautiful planet, to be sure, but it couldn't compare to the beauty of his memories.

When no reply came, he turned his head and was greeted with Shepard fully dressed and slightly wet. Water droplets clung to the myriad of scars that lined her face, further illuminating the crimson cybernetics beneath her skin. That explained the smell. She seemed much more at ease, out of the dress she'd had to wear, and was running a small hand towel through her ebony hair.

Something about her seemed off. More off than seeing her in formal ware, which had nearly woke him from his battle-sleep in shock. He gestured to her seat.

Several things happened at once. Her hand dropped with the towel to her side, encasing a glint of metal in her jacket which she proceeded to pull forth. His body reacted instantly to the perceived threat, twisting from his seat and around the table. One hand encased hers; the other grasped her waist and spun her around, slamming her against the window. With a twist, he disarmed her, and pressed the gun to the back of her head.

The silence was loud. The drive core, the vents, all the usual sounds a ship alive around them went dark. Even their breath seemed to have stilled, when at last Shepard hissed, "I need you to get your hands off me."

Thane's soul seemed to hear her, and forced the instincts of his body to relent. He stepped back and set the gun, still encased in the towel, a safe distance from each of them.

Shepard turned to face him, cybernetic hellfire glinting and shifting beneath her eyes. The spiderweb of scars that line her face, and the rest of her body, he reminded perfectly from the dress, glowed red hot. She was trembling, not with fear, but indignation. _"How dare you," _he could almost imagine her whispering. He pushed the memory of his wife away, unnervingly aware of how similar the two seemed at this very moment.

"X-12e Locust, Kassa Fabrications," She said instead, forcing him back into the present. "Gun that killed two Presidents. I gave Kasumi the copy," Thane imagined Kasumi had switched them already, "So I could give you this." The explanation ended. Shepard shook her head almost bemusedly and stared up at the ceiling, as she often did when she had trouble believing the situation.

"Shepard, I-" He started, when she silenced him with a glare.

"Perfect weapon for an assassin," She snapped bitingly, and turned on her heel and left.

He let the sigh escape him when the door to Life Support slid closed. Drifting slowly around the table, he sank back into his seat and spread the towel out to observe the gun it held. It was an elegant piece of weaponry, with an internal floating bed to minimize recoil, auto-targeting, and an antique ivory-handle. He took it apart twice and put it back together twice.

Despite the bitterness of her parting comment, it seemed accurate enough. It was the perfect weapon for an assassin. … The perfect gift for him. He stilled another sigh and stood to add it to his weapon rack.

He blinked, staring at the space she had occupied, and let himself slip back into his memories. Not of years ago, but moments ago.

_Inner fire glows through cracks in pale skin. Eyes glint, light of mischief in sunset orbs. Muscles move, map of wrinkles over scars, expression long-forgotten, never used. _

Sliding back into his seat as the memory faded away, Thane pressed his palms into his forehead as he realized why she'd looked different when she came in. Arashu forgive him, she'd been smiling.


	5. Across the Sea

Across the Sea

Arashu willing, his faith had never faltered. It had gone dormant, with the rest of his soul in his battle sleep, but faltered it had not.

He'd returned to the sea, and for his faith his gods had rewarded him, as an angel waited for him on the shore.

"I was waiting for you." Sunset eyes, scales like ocean's spray. A face and voice he'd not heard outside of memories in eleven years.

"Irikah." His bare feet pass across the sands of Kalahira's domain, reaching for his siha. And his siha stepped away.

"And now you're waiting for her." There was nothing in her voice. No fire, no fury.

"She gave me more than memories." He let the waves roll over him, warm water on his toes, warm sun on his back.

"With memories all you've left her." She turned to face the sea. They would wait together.

He didn't know how much time had passed, perhaps it had been no time at all, but the ocean birthed new afterlife, and hair glistening with its spray, his second siha followed him.

He reached for her as well, she too stepped away. Two angels met, two angels smiled. Shepard ran a hand through hair no longer wet, "He always talked about your eyes. They are beautiful."

"And you who takes her place at my husband's side," For the sun is made of fire, and sunset eyes have much of it, "Where is your beauty?"

"You can love more than once in a lifetime," He interrupted. The sun burned down on him, the water bitingly cold.

"And in the afterlife, who do you love now?" Indignation wrote itself across a teal face, patterned in ebony markings that had always looked like tears.

"He shouldn't have to choose," Shepard interrupted. Her gaze never faltered, fixed on sunset eyes. It spoke of envy. If only she could see her eyes were no longer artificial.

"You need only half a heart from half a man." Her hand rose to trace the scaleless face. Where fingers lingered, cracks bled red along the skin. They splintered and grew like wildfire, and soon they covered all her body. "You are no siha."

"Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds." He quoted. He had to speak; with all the breath that was denied him in life he would defend them both in death. "You still love me,"

"I still love you." Irikah repeated. "Where was your love in life?" He'd abandoned her. He remembered. He could never forget. "Where is your love in death?"

"He loves both of us." The cracks grew, it seemed they wouldn't stop. The sun burned through them, and not from above. "You love him too, you waited for him."

"I have waited long enough." She took her hand away, the cracks vanished. "I have loved him long enough."

He couldn't speak. His siha spoke for him. "You can't mean that. You forgave him."

"Many times." Teal feet carried themselves back towards the sea, away from the shore, his shore. "There is faith in love. There is love in faith," Sunset eyes, every facet crystallized in memory, fixed on him, "You knew I was waiting."

"I love you still, with all that I am." The sand swallowed up his feet and would not let him follow. "You can't leave me, not after I've lived so long in our memories."

"You left me." Sunset eyes fixed on eyes once artificial. "And you, who takes her place at my husband's side. Is this all that you deserve? A man who speaks of love to another?" She stepped into the waves, and her voice echoed in parting. "Where is your beauty?"

The sand released his feet, but there was no one with him on the shore.

Kalahira's voice echoed in the waves, from which no others came. "Where is your siha?"


	6. The Atheist and the Polytheist

**AN**: Please skip this chapter if easily offended. It contains politically incorrect and insensitive material, towards both religion and suicide. The views of my Shepard do not necessarily coincide with my own, and should not be read by anyone.

* * *

The Atheist and the Polytheist

The Tantalus drive core had an alien feel compared to most starcraft. It heralded a lateral pull, as opposed to a horizontal one. The vibrant blue pulsing and gentle hum reminded him of the sea, and he settled into his meditations with an ease that made it seem as if Kalahira herself were calling him.

That is, until a rush of humid air accompanied by the thunderous storm of a purposeful stride interrupted him.

"Do you need something?" It was a courtesy he always extended when torn from his meditations. He suspected she noticed the irritation coating his voice. He also suspected she ignored it.

"You're alone." An accurate observation, if not a particularly astute one. He was always alone.

"Indeed."

"When you die," She advanced to the window, blocking his view of the mystical core. He suppressed further irritation. Something else he suspected she did on purpose. Of the few things she demanded of him, his full attention when they spoke was one of them. "You're alone. What you did in life… whatever you didn't say, didn't do… in the end, it doesn't matter, because you're dying, and you're alone."

How depressing. "I'll take that into consideration," Thane murmured dryly.

Red orbs fixed him with an annoyed glare. "I'm not finished." She turned around then and gripped the window sill. A comfortable silence, save for the easy rhythm of the drive core, filled the room. He half-meditated while waiting for her to continue.

"None of that matters," It was a whisper, one he almost missed over the crackling of his lungs, but it drew his attention back regardless. "You're never so… alive. You're fighting, and every extra minute, extra second, is a victory. Every ounce of terror has an ounce of triumph, because even though you're dying, you're still alive."

She turned back around and clutched the edge of her chair while waiting for his response. _Her chair?_ He filed the possessive pronoun away for later consideration. "And then?"

"And then what?" Her eyes narrowed, the shadows cast along her face caused the crimson orbs to glint. Eerie.

"After death." Thane clarified with a wave of his hand, inviting her to sit. "You have no memory of the shore that awaited you?"

"There's nothing after death." She frowned at him, but eased herself into the seat regardless. She rarely passed up an opportunity to debate philosophy with him. "Neurons stop firing, and that's it, you're gone."

"And yet you came back," He pointed out obviously, folding his hands together, "That seems clear evidence you had somewhere to come back from."

"Just because you turn off a light doesn't mean its waiting somewhere in light-hell for you to bring it back," She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back in the chair. "It's gone. Electricity brings the light back. Science, not faith."

"Light-hell?" He smirked bemusedly.

"Well it certainly wasn't going to light-heaven." She rolled her cybernetic eyes.

"You seem unfairly judgmental of the light."

"Yeah, well," She shrugged, "The light cast a lot of bad shadows and probably had it coming."

Thane chuffed, "The light likely more than made up for it with the shadows it eliminated."

"Don't talk about the light like you knew what its life was like."

He waved her offense aside, "I'm sure the light was no different when it was turned back on."

"Well I'm sure-…." She stopped, then stared at him, puzzled, "Why are we still talking about the light?"

"I am not sure, Shepard," and yet, in some small part of his mind, Thane was sure Shepard thought they were talking about a lamp.

"Anyway," Shepard put her chair back down on all four pegs, "Why are you interested in what I think happens after death? Do your gods even apply to me?"

"Kalahira's embrace is for any who wish it." He hadn't asked with the intent to bring his own gods to light. He'd been curious towards her own faith, but now that the idea had struck him, it refused to abate. The only reason Shepard would turn to Kalahira would be to follow one of her faithful across the sea…

"And those who don't?" Shepard raised an eyebrow at him. He wasn't sure what she expected him to say. Drell had no concept of the human hell.

"You have your own gods, if I'm not mistaken, Shepard." He offered instead. The closest drell had to hell was to struggle endlessly in the sea, refused Kalahira's embrace.

"Not exactly. Our main religion has a God; just a lot of different names for him."

"Him?"

"Yeah," Shepard chuckled, "Guess equal opportunity doesn't apply to our deities. Basically, most of the religions say if you don't believe in the right version of him, you go to hell. One hell of a gamble, right? Heh… hell of a gamble…" She stopped and snickered at her own joke. "Ash had a different view. She figured as long as you believed in God, it didn't matter what faith you were, heaven's gates were open."

"Ash, the member of your old squad you met on Horizon?"

"Yeah… so much for Thou Shalt Not Be a Bitch."

"I'm afraid I do not follow."

"That's okay. If you ever read the bible, Jesus dies on page 681."

"Why would I read it, now that you've spoiled the ending?" Shepard burst out laughing, coughing and smacking her chest with her fist to contain herself. After taking several deep breaths, she finally ran a hand through her hair and calmed down.

"Why do you believe in your gods, anyway, Thane?" She folded her arms across the table, leaving her throat exposed. The gesture meant nothing to humans, but it was refreshing to have her accidentally use an expression of trust for his culture. "No offense, but I always took religion as an excuse to explain what you don't understand. You don't seem like the type that fits the bill. You also don't seem like the type so afraid of death they have to invent a second life."

He didn't seem like the type afraid of death… Thane smiled. It was encouraging to learn she had such faith in him. It was also shameful. The very thought chilled him to the core… Strange, it was only recently he felt such fear in the face of a death he'd long ago accepted. He supposed it was because the less time he had, the more real his impending demise became.

"I suppose it's close to Doctor Solus's reasoning," He decided at length, "This life alone seems too wasteful. Too empty."

"That just makes it matter," She insisted empathetically, surprising him. "If this was all just some prequel to paradise, we may as well rage quit and get it over with."

"Rage quit…" He repeated slowly. He'd never heard someone speak so casually and so indecently of suicide.

"Yeah." She shrugged, not seeing anything wrong with her phrasing, "We need to grab life by the balls, not sit around waiting for the next one."

"Shepard," Thane rubbed his forehead between thumb and forefinger, "I don't think you realize how disarming your metaphors are."

"Well, you could stand to be disarmed once in a while," She finally had the decency to look slightly embarrassed. Slightly. "You're always so composed."

"Is that why you stormed into my quarters in such a fashion?" He grinned. Their talks were usually like this. She would start by bursting in and shattering his calm, talk him out of his annoyance, and leave him lamenting her absence. It was more than a little disquieting how effective it was.

Shepard shrugged. "I couldn't sleep." She glanced around the room rather than focus on him.

"And you felt the need to reaffirm your beliefs in the afterlife?"

"Maybe," She sighed and scratched the back of her head, "Hell, I don't know. There's just this skylight above my bed… I hate waking up to it. Staring out at all the stars, right when I wake up, I'm always afraid I've been spaced again."

"Afraid?" He tiled his head to the side. That such a thing could bring back memories of her death, and the feelings associated with it, brought forth a side to her he'd never considered.

"Pretty sure that's the first thing I said when I came in," Shepard snorted, raising an eyebrow at him, "You forget already?"

"I find it more than a little insulting that you would question my memory."

"I know; that's why I did it."

"Would it be so terrible if there was an afterlife awaiting you, Shepard?"

"Yes," She answered without any hesitation, "I told you, I know what would be waiting for me. For now I'm just going to keep using my extra lives. I hope I have nine, like a cat."

'Cat' His translator bleeped helpfully at him, 'A small, furry, domesticated, carnivorous, Earth mammal, valued for its companionship and ability to hunt vermin.'

"You give yourself far too little credit, Shepard." Thane ignored the helpful hints his translator was offering him, least he miss part of their conversation. "I'm sure the shore that awaits you would be a pleasant one. Whatever mistakes you've made or shadows you've cast can't compare to all the good you've done. The galaxy is a brighter place for your efforts."

Shepard gave a rueful shake of her head. "I doubt it," She chuckled, "But if your gods are so forgiving, maybe I should follow them. You know, Plan B if I die again and no one brings me back." She stood up and pushed her chair in. "Thanks Thane. Glad you have faith in me."

He gave a light nod, and watched her leave through her reflection in the window. When the door whisked closed behind her, he spoke into his empty quarters, "Edi?"

"How may I help you, Mr. Krios?" Edi's holographic display cast the room in a gentle blue glow.

"The skylight above Commander Shepard's bed, can it be closed?"

"Of course, Mr. Krios."

"Could you do so?"

"I'm afraid I have been given orders to have the skylight remain open."

"By who?"

"Commander Shepard gave the order. She claimed it was so she would 'never forget.' I am sorry I cannot be of assistance."

"Thank you, Edi."

"Logging you out." The light vanished.

Thane stood up and pushed his chair in, then disrobed and folded all his clothes in a pile on the table, before lying down on his cot. Idly, he drummed his fingers over his chest while he stared up at the ceiling.

Shepard readily reminded herself of her own death, and he could scarce bring himself to face his. If ever there was a soul worthy of Kalahira's embrace, it was her. Maybe she was right, and he spent too much time focusing on the afterlife, and not the present.

How could she have such strength, and no faith? Cast such light, and see only shadows? How could an angel not believe in the gods? Thane shook himself abruptly. He belonged in his memories or in his prayers. The only thing for him in the present was something he didn't deserve.


	7. Tripping Balls

Tripping Balls

Shepard raised a hand to tell Tali and Thane to wait for her. She left them at the bar, one with a bartender Garrus had assured her could be trusted. As much as anyone on Omega could be trusted. The floor and walls shimmered with violet holos of the Halls of Athame. This was Aria's level, so the theme was the asari afterlife. Crowds parted for her as she made her way to the platform that overlooked the dance floors, like wild animals recognizing a more dangerous predator.

She was one of the few people allowed to enter Afterlife fully armed and in full body armor. If she wasn't allowed, who was going to stop her? She nodded to the batarian body guard as she took the stairs two at a time, and he tilted his head to the left. Batarians. Shepard was sure it meant something insulting, but she didn't know what or care.

She reached Aria's loft, where she sat surrounded by asari handmaidens and turian bodyguards. Shepard had to admit the Pirate Queen had good tastes. A krogan blocked her path until Aria nodded to the seat beside her. Shepard shoved her shoulder into the bodyguard as she went by, and felt like she dislocated it in the process. Gritting her teeth at her own stupidity, she sat down and gave Aria a short nod.

"What do you need?" Aria asked loud enough to be heard over the endless music and heart-pounding bass.

"I'm looking for a quarian, Kade'Kalar," Shepard crossed her leg to rest her foot on her opposite knee, "He came here on his pilgrimage."

"A lot of quarians come here on their pilgrimage." Aria glanced at her, then looked back out over her club. She liked her followers to know when she was doing business, and who she was doing business with. "What makes this one so special?"

"Kade got picked up by batarian slavers three days ago."

"Then you're a day late," Aria rolled her eyes. "Batarians don't keep their new stock in the same place they catch it for long."

"Just tell me where I might be able to find him." Shepard dropped her leg and propped her elbows up on her knees to lean forward.

"I can't tell you that if you don't know who has him."

"They were a group that supplies Khar'shan directly. I don't know the name."

"Well aren't you in luck," Aria smiled, and glanced away from her again. Shepard ground her teeth together. She liked Aria, for the most part. But when Shepard asked a question, she expected an immediate answer. "Who are the two you brought with you?"

"Part of my crew," Shepard returned curtly, "Here to help me find Kade, who is where…?"

"That explains the quarian." Aria raised a painted eyebrow at her, "And the drell?"

"Is part of my crew." Aria continued to stare at her, unhelpfully mute. Shepard met her stare and refused to offer up any more information. Aria broke first, but not in the way Shepard had hoped.

"I want to meet him."

"After we save Kade," Shepard frowned.

"You've got time."

"You just said-"

"I said you're in luck. Kade can wait. Tell him to come up."

Shepard glared at her, but Aria had apparently lost interest in their conversation. She'd turned away and focused her attention back out on her domain of clubbers and cutthroats. Shepard bristled. Aria always had to milk even the most mundane of situations to her advantage. She debated arguing, but deep down knew there was no point. She wasn't getting any information until Aria got her way.

Pressing her hand to her ear, she growled into her comm. unit. "Thane, I need you to join me up here."

"As I must," His voice rumbled in her ear almost immediately. Shepard folded her leg across her knee and began drumming her fingers on her boot to suppress her irritation. Aria was watching the entrances to her small loft, and Shepard felt a smirk tugging at the edge of her lips. Thane would never take the stairs.

Sure enough, moments later, he dropped out of the shadows to stand next to her with his hands locked behind his back, his posture unerringly straight. Aria's guards had a shitfit.

Guns unfolded, heatsinks clicked, and targeting lasers trained on the both of them. Unlike her, Thane saw no reason to hide the smirk that crossed his face. Even Aria looked unsettled. She wanted to kiss him.

"Cute," Aria hissed, the only other sign she'd been rattled. That, and the fact that she forgot whatever she'd planned to ask about him. "The Fifth Eye supplies Khar'shan from Omega. They have a stock warehouse southeast of Fortune's Den. They don't move their stock until they have enough to fill a ship. It saves fuel."

Shepard pushed herself up, keeping her face as neutral as possible, "Thanks for the help."

"Good luck," Aria tossed out disinterestedly.

She and Thane took the conventional way out, and Shepard waited until they'd reached the main floor before she shoved him up against the nearest wall and kissed him. A quick kiss was safe. She wouldn't start tripping on a quick kiss. Then his arm was around her waist, and her hands were under his jacket, and it was never just a quick kiss.

"Tali is waiting for us," Thane protested emptily, hand wrapped in the back of her hair.

"Didn't you hear Aria?" Shepard bit one of his earrings and tugged on it, "We've got time."

"Sure I can't get you a drink, babe?" The turian bartender asked Tali as he ran a cloth around a glass. "On the house."

"No." Tali snapped, drumming her fingers on the table. "Thank you." She added just as curtly. Shepard had left her frequency open, which meant Tali and probably half the Normandy could listen to her and Krios making out in some back corner of Afterlife as long as they had their comm. channel open. Which Tali did.

She told herself she'd just wait it out. New couples on the Flotilla scarcely left each other's presence, so it wasn't as if she was surprised they were so easily distracted, but when Thane's gravelly voice whispered, "I want to memorize all of you," into her ear, she leapt up from her stool with a yelp of disgust. The bartender gave her an odd look and Tali smacked her comm off.

"I want to vomit in my helmet…" Tali groaned to herself, shoving her way through the crowds of Afterlife and gagging. She made her way towards Aria's booth, assuming they hadn't gotten far. Patrons crowded around the bars, lines flowed between booths and the dance floor. It was almost impossible to pinpoint two people wearing red and black in the mass of bodies.

Tali dug through corners and booths, and interrupted an asari couple and a batarian one before she found a leather jacket tossed across a chair in a dark corner. "Give me something to reflect on."

"Shepard," She growled through her speaker, her face fused into what she was sure was now a permanent grimace, "I don't want to come on missions with you and Thane anymore!"

A loud thump came from the shadows before Shepard stumbled out pulling her chest armor and gloves back on. She was missing her eyepiece and her hair was terribly disheveled. "We were only… with a second." She patted down her hair, then kept blithely patting it. Keelah.

"… is Thane coming?" Tali sighed, folding her arms across her chest.

"Ah-he-…" Shepard grabbed the jacket off the ground and flung it behind her into the corner. "Pants."

"I did not need to hear that." Helmet vomit was looking better every second. "Did you find out where Kade is?"

"Near Fortune's Den," Shepard chuckled to herself, then kept chuckling. "Sorry, Tali, let's head out." She straightened her shoulders and started marching clumsily forward.

Tali grabbed her arm. "Shepard, your visor."

"Oh, huh…" She ran her hand down her face, bewildered, then stared at her hand and started flexing her fingers.

Tali took another deep breath, trying to stay tolerant. A crescent flew out of the shadows and Shepard caught it with the hand she wasn't staring at. At least her … condition… hadn't affected her reflexes. Shepard glanced at the piece of armor in extreme alarm, "What the shi-"

"It's your visor, Shepard." Tali sighed, immensely patient, and fixed it to her head for her.

"Well let's go!" She smacked her fists together, and turned on her heel towards the exit to Afterlife, still chuckling at nothing in particular, "We've got a quarian to save!"

"… Thane?" Tali blinked, trailing after Shepard least her friend get lost and wind up in an alley behind Afterlife again.

"I- … seem to be missing an earclip," Please let that be the truth, please let that be the truth… "I'll join up in a moment, you have my word."

"I've had enough of your words for one lifetime," Tali mumbled under her breath, and ran after her hallucinating Commander.

"Shepard, you should know better," She said when she caught up with her friend and steered her towards the taxis and away from the snack bar she'd been charging towards. "Kade could be in serious trouble."

"He's not in trouble yet," Shepard insisted empathetically, "I would smell it."

"… Maybe I should ask Garrus to help me instead." Tali wrung her hands together uneasily. She'd never had to deal with Shepard when she was like this before.

"Tali, trust me," Shepard fell into the taxi and set it to autopilot. Tali silently thanked the ancestors she wasn't going to try to drive. "I've got your back. Chicks before dicks. You know, if your men have dicks…"

"Oh Keelah."

Shepard spent the ride asking Tali if she thought the lights were too loud, because she could turn them down if they were hurting her ears. Tali sighed. Deep breaths. Deep, cleansing breaths…

When the taxi reached Fortune's Den, Thane was already waiting, shades hiding his eyes and still missing his earclip. "I hope you're happy," Tali muttered when she stormed up to him, "Thanks to you, Shepard is a dabbling idiot."

"That-ah… was not my intent." Thane coughed into his gloved hand, "I'm sure the two of us would be more than enough to rescue your friend, should we need to return Shepard to the ship."

"I don't want to waste any more time searching for Kade," Tali adjusted her cowl, and glanced around for any sign of batarian patrols in the area. "One of us will just have to watch her,"

Shepard sauntered over to fling her arms around Thane's shoulders and pull him in for a passionate kiss. Tali stared at ceiling with its flickering lights and loose piping, grumbling until Shepard forget what she was doing and wandered off. When she glanced back down, Thane pulled his missing clip out of his mouth and reaffixed it to his fringe.

"…" Tali stood staring at Thane who stared enigmatically back. After a long awkward silence, he finally gestured towards where Shepard had gone.

"… Shall we?"

"Yes, let's."

They reached the warehouse with Tali steering Shepard in the right direction, who was watching things only she could see and giggling softly the entire way. When they finally reached the side entrance, she grabbed Tali and pulled her to the side of the door.

"Tali, Tali, Tali!" Shepard gripped her by her shoulders and stared intently into at her mask.

"What? What is it!" Tali jumped, startled, and tried to glance from side to side to notice whatever Shepard had seen.

"Hold still!" Shepard hissed, gripping Tali's face in her hands. "I can see my reflection in your mask! Lemme just-lemme just…"

Tali frowned vehemently, wrapped her hands around Shepard's wrists, and forced them off her helmet and back down to her side. "You're watching her." She growled at Thane, then hacked open the door and let all hell break loose.

The mercenaries, seeing only three people attacking their base, didn't bother threatening to kill the hostages, and instead settled on trying to take them alive as extra slaves. Their plan backfired violently, and Tali and Thane made short work of them. Shepard spent most of the fight crouched atop a crate, screaming at them to get off the floor which, according to her, was lava.

Kade and several other slaves were freed despite the delay, and Tali saw him off with a thousand credit chit Shepard had set aside as bribe money for the mission, to continue on his pilgrimage. She also had to reply to a stream of questions and thanks from the rest of the slaves, as Shepard was too busy crawling over Thane and babbling about how happy she was he'd survived the lava.

When they finally returned to the Normandy, Thane saw Shepard up to her room. Some of the crew had gathered not-so-inconspicuously in the cockpit, and Tali waited until the elevator closed on Thane and Shepard to join them.

"Come oooonnnn," Shepard's voice whined from the intercom in the cockpit, which Joker, Kasumi, Jacob, and Garrus were clustered around, chuckling. She'd left her frequency on. Again. "Kiss me! I don't wanna come down yet."

"Siha, I am cutting you off." Thane's voice returned, "In fact, I think we should find you an anonymous self-help group for your addiction."

"But I'm addicted to you!"

"That would be pleasant sentiment if it were not so literal, Siha."

"I could just lick you."

"Please do not." A series of thumps and hollers sounded across the intercom, "Shepard! You need help!" Everyone listening in burst out laughing, and Tali rolled her eyes. They were the ones who needed help.

"Call me Siha!" Shepard yelled back, drawing another round of laughs before Tali reached over Joker's shoulder and shut off the intercom.


	8. First Impression

First Impression

Thane had seen the recruitment ads that used Commander Shepard's likeness. He'd seen the proud speech of humanity's first Spectre on Westerlund News. He'd listened to the interview between her and the FCC reporter Emily Wong. She'd been tenacious. Charismatic. Tactful.

The woman before him now was only one of those things.

After bursting through the front door in a blaze of guns and curses he'd heard echo a story above, she'd stormed up the tower after him so fast he'd taken to dropping bodies through the vents to startle her. Instead of making her hesitate, when the mercenary corpse had crashed down in front of her, it made her go faster, with little more than a chuckled, 'I like this guy already.'

She'd started a conversation with his target that was anything but tasteful, even encouraging Nassana to bribe her to leave. Interrupted his prayers. Insulted his methods. Leapt away from him terrified his disease was contagious. Asked him, one of the most expensive assassins in the galaxy, to work for her with no hint of pay.

And gods help him, he'd said yes. He'd thrown in that he would do the mission gratis, but the subtle hint that his skills were not usually free had gone right over her head.

Shepard ran both her hands through her wild hair, slicking it back with blood and sweat. "Now of course comes the fun part," She turned away from him obliviously and glanced at the window, then the exit. "Walking all the way back out."

"We might be able to get Seryna to give us a lift again," The turian beside her spoke up. Thane recognized him as well, as the turian who'd been with Commander Shepard in nearly all of her interviews two years ago. Given the names Shepard had been screaming throughout her climb up the tower, Thane guessed his was 'Garrus.'

The other human female, who Thane sent a silent prayer of thanks was not Shepard, snorted. "Fat chance," She folded her arms over her all-but-bare chest. "You don't come back to a crime scene unless you wanna get caught. She's long gone."

Shepard shrugged and rolled one of her shoulders back. The turian and the other human had put their guns away, but were still eying him cautiously. Shepard had turned her back to him and stopped paying attention. Gratuitously confident? Naively trusting? Probably both.

"Well," She smacked the turian on the shoulder and started towards the exit. "It'll do you good to walk off some of that extra weight." They left together, the humans carefree. The turian opted for the rear guard, likely to keep an eye on him.

"Extra weight?" He scoffed, tilting his head to tell Thane to go first.

"I'm guessing the only reason you haven't changed your ruined armor is because you're stuck in it."

"Maybe I'm just sentimental." They came out over the bridge from one tower to the other. Destroyed mechs twitched and sparked, char from explosions lined nearly every viable cover, crates were toppled… the bridge was in ruins. It was littered with bodies face down in pools of their own blood, sad mockeries of the sea that awaited them.

Thane's eye ridges drew closer together and the scales on his neck pulled his fringe back in displeasure. It was chaos. Wasteful chaos. If he had to kill, he killed cleanly. The only mercenaries he'd eliminated the entire time he'd been making his way towards Nassana were those who'd threatened the lives of the salarian employees.

"Yeah," Shepard laughed, kicking a body over the bridge with a careless disregard for the dead. "And maybe Jack'll grow her hair out and join Cerberus." The other human, 'Jack,' let out a bark of laughter. Shepard abandoned the conversation to talk into her comm. unit, "Shepard to Normandy, come in Normandy."

She laughed in reply to something the speaker on the other end of the line said. Odd, that there would be such a lack of discipline that the pilot's greeting would be a joke. "You know me. Have someone send the shuttle to meet us at the base of the second Dantius Tower. Shepard out," The four of them took the elevator down in silence, passing more destruction as they went. Bodies and mechs lined nearly every hall, adding macabre decor to an otherwise renovated building.

"You know, Thane, for an assassin you're not very stealthy." Shepard decided out of nowhere. Thane was momentarily thrown. She'd yet to introduce him to either squad member, but had apparently decided they were already on a first name basis.

"How do you mean?" He glanced down at her, keeping his hands locked behind his back. He had a feeling he was going to regret allowing this conversation, no matter where it led.

Shepard shrugged, "I just figured someone with your reputation would be more difficult to find." When he failed to respond she continued without him. "It's like you weren't even trying to hide. No false leads, no traps. You even used your real name."

Mentally, Thane sighed. He hadn't felt the need to be subtle because he hadn't thought he was going to survive. He couldn't exactly explain that this whole mission had been his surrender to death and expect it to go over well. But now that he planned to live, he was never going to live it down.

"I doubt we even needed Seryna. We probably could have found you through the taxi you rented to get here." He wasn't going to dignify any of this with an answer. No one else was talking. She'd have to give up. "I wonder how that conversation went, 'Yes, I'd like to rent a taxi.'" … eventually.

"Name?" Jack chimed in, dropping back to fall into step beside Shepard.

"Krios," The two women traded wicked smirks, "Thane Krios. Yes, K-R-I …."

Jack burst out laughing and abandoned her place at Shepard's side to walk up front again. Shepard grinned to herself for a moment, before tilting her head to stare at him. She didn't look apologetic or amused. On the contrary, she looked far too serious. "You'd think you'd know better," She whispered, too soft for anyone but him to hear.

Thane came to a dead halt, before he came back to himself and quickly resumed his place at her side. He'd stopped listening when she'd started mocking him, knowing there was no way he could defend himself. He was more than a little shocked at the double meaning that weighted down her chastising remark.

"Yes, you'd think I would." He allotted. Shepard may have been without any grace or tact, but she was certainly perceptive.

"I'm only interested in the best for this mission. People who won't make the same mistakes twice." … she also didn't know when to quit. Thane frowned at her and she raised both hands to ward him off.

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Thane sighed and massaged his forehead. They'd just met, and she'd already given him a headache.

Shepard grinned sheepishly and shrugged, "Probably."


	9. Undisclosed Desires

Undisclosed Desires

"So you're going to do it, right?" Shepard leaned across the table and slid her hands over the cold metal. Pale, white hands he had only to reach out and take…

"No." Thane said both to himself and to her. "I am your arm; to take a contract from another would be a dishonor to what I have vowed, and all you have done for me." All she had gone out of her way to do, to help someone as undeserving as him. Thane blinked both sets of eyelids. He was far too arrogant; she went out of her way for everyone.

"But they're offering a small fortune," Shepard threw up her hands and leaned back in her chair, kicking her feet up on the table. "If Cerberus paid me that much I'd quit the day job."

Such offhanded comments, so misguided and careless, were just another reminder of how she did not always consider the weight of her actions and words. Didn't know how much of an affect they had on others, on him "I find it more than a little disquieting you could be so easily bought."

"It's just an expression." Shepard blew a stray lock of hair away from her face, "Besides, you could use the money."

"For what purpose?" He watched the lock fall back to its place of origin, suddenly irked by the minor imperfection. "You supply m-everyone with state of the art equipment. Any excess income would be wasted on vanities."

"Or Kolyat," Shepard gave him a disapproving stare, then continued before he had the chance to draw breath for an argument, "And don't give me that 'he needs to learn to look out for himself' bullshit; we both know he's been doing that for too long."

"I… suppose I deserved that," Thane winced.

"Sorry," Shepard rubbed the back of her neck, breaking eye-contact. Shepard never apologized, to anyone for anything. Maybe he wasn't fooling himself, and she- "I mean, yeah, you did, but that was kind of harsh." There it was.

"…"

"I could come with, make it a d-" Whatever she'd been about to say strangled in her throat, "A distraction. You know, for the guards, or security. It's always pretty tight on Bekenstein,"

Thane rubbed at the bridge of his nose to suppress an oncoming headache. She was just making an excuse to come; she didn't know she'd inadvertently insulted his abilities. "I fail to understand why you are so intent on me accepting this contract."

"It would be fun?"

"That is a poor reason to take a man's life."

"It would be really fun?"

"…"

Shepard eventually splintered beneath his gaze and gave an exasperated sigh, dropping back down to all four pegs. "Alright, alright. Kasumi wants me to go to this formal party, with formal wear, and formal people…"

"And she intends for you to crash this party?"

"No, go to. As in attend. As in I have to wear formal wear, around formal people. Now, I figure there are only two ways I can do that. One, is stone drunk."

"That plan does have its drawbacks," He allotted, folding his hands together in mock-thoughtfulness, "Inebriation is not always in tandem with 'calm' for you."

"Hey, watch it, before I put my fist in the face that your face is in," She parodied the drunken-rant she'd made before she'd passed out in the Dark Star when last they were on the Citadel.

"That was almost clever."

"Dick. Anyway, the other way is if I've already blown off steam, so I don't go off on anyone who gives me a 'holier than thou' speech or mocks my man shoulders. Going with you on a hit sounds like a great way to relax before the party." She smiled winningly, or tried to. The cracks her cybernetics left in her pale skin turned it into more of a smirk.

"There are easier ways to blow off steam," The words were out of his mouth before he could help himself.

Shepard smirked luridly – it was most certainly a smirk – and leaned across the table to invade his personal space, "Such as?"

Her hair had fallen in front of her face again. He had only to reach up and push it back behind her ear to show her exactly what he meant. And he would have, had he not picked up on a sudden addition to the room's occupancy. He leaned back so fast the motion was almost violent. "None so as effective as your suggestion." Thankfully, she looked bewildered and not offended, "And perhaps Miss Goto would like to accompany us as well."

"Oh my gosh yes!" Kasumi deactivated her cloak and leapt out of the vent beside his cot she'd been stealthed in.

Shepard stood up so quickly she knocked her chair over, "Wha-shit!" She flung herself back against the window and had her sidearm drawn before her soul caught up with the instincts of her body. "Damn, Kasumi," She panted, sliding her gun back into the back of her belt. "You've got to stop doing that."

"Sorry, Shep." Kasumi shrugged, dusting off the coat of silver left on her by the vents, "I'd love to come! That sounds amazing. Your target is Jin Bao, right?"

"How do you-"

"Yes."

"Cool!" She beamed at them, running her hands over her pants to smooth out the wrinkles, "Call me down to the shuttle when you guys are going, or, nevermind, I'll be there!" She tugged on her hood, hit her omnitool, and vanished. The doors slid open then slid closed, though nothing could be seen leaving.

"Do you think she's still in here?" Shepard whispered uneasily, righting her chair.

"No," He stood up with her when it became apparent she was disinclined to take her seat, "Shepard, working with you I feel as though I have been able to eliminate evil without adding any to my soul. Taking on a contract, when I have no need of it…"

"Thane," Shepard scoffed, "The man's a drug dealer and a pimp. Trust me; your soul will be fine."

"I'm not so certain," He had far too many doubts surrounding his choices that a man had any business having. Enough that when Shepard made to move pass him, he stepped aside, rather than pin her to the wall and remove far more than his doubts.

"Well, if you're still uneasy about it later," She paused at the door, "I can think of a few ways to blow off steam."

By the time speech returned to him, the door had closed behind her, and he was left alone with his meditations.

Sure enough, when they'd landed on Bekenstein and went down to the cargo hold, Kasumi was waiting in the shuttle for them, going over her weapons and omnitool. Shepard flung herself into the nearest seat and growled "You know it's a good thing you're getting paid so much for this mission. We'll probably need most of it to cover the docking fees on this pompous planet."

As the shuttle left the Normandy, she started going over her weapons, starting with the Arc-Projector on her back. It was a gruesome invention, sending its victims into seizures vicious enough to stop a krogan's charge. Mercifully, that was most of what Shepard limited its usage to. She also unleashed it on security mechs, which they were likely to encounter in droves on Bao's premises.

"So dish," Kasumi grinned at her later. The three of them had split up to take out Bao. Kasumi and her were assaulting from the front, while Thane went in the escape route to take out Bao when he tried to flee. The thief darted out from cover to take out a mech's head with her SMG. It sputtered a startled 'Error!' before it exploded, blowing off the legs of another, which continued to crawl towards them with admirable determination. "You and Thane are an item, right?"

Shepard launched an overload techmine at the YMIR mech circling their position. Its kinetic barriers shattered and it froze in place, little more than a ten-foot-tall target for the next several seconds while its VI battled the modified virus. "You should know better than to listen to scuttlebutt, Kasumi."

"No answer means yes," Kasumi hummed in a sing-song voice as she emptied her thermal clip on the frozen YMIR.

"Thane and I are just friends." The crawling LOKI mech had finally reached them, and spluttered, 'cease your hostile actions' before a point-black shot from Shepard's shotgun showered them with sparks and shrapnel.

"Special friends?"

"Sometimes I feel like you're as bad a fan as Conrad."

"Hey, I was there," Kasumi aimed a final shot at the YMIR's head, taking it off and setting it to self destruct. They ducked behind their cover and waited for the power-cells to send a crushing shockwave across the courtyard. "He seemed nice."

"Then you have to remember I shot him in the foot." Shepard vaulted over the crate and took out the rest of the LOKI mechs with little more than well-placed elbows as she made her way towards the front entrance. She took cover on the side of the massive door, silently cursing the mansion didn't have glass walls as most affluent homes seemed to fancy.

"So you're really just friends?" Kasumi pouted when she reached her, starting up a bypass on the hololock. "But you two seem so close…"

"Garrus and I are close," She snorted, ejecting her thermal clip and slamming in a new one, "No one asks if we're 'special friends'"

"You're not?" Kasumi gaped, looking up from her bypass momentarily.

"Oh my god, how many people do you think I'm sleeping with!" Kasumi bit her lip and turned hastily back to the lock. Shepard frowned at her. "Kasumi…"

"Well, you did have dinner with Kelly, and you're the only one who touches Joker… and then you and Zaeed always seem to finish each other's sentences when you're together-"

"Augh!" Shepard wrenched the door panels clear rather than wait for the bypass to finishing forcing them open. "I don't want to listen to this."

"You asked!" Kasumi whined from behind her as security guards came streaming into the front room. The two of them dove for cover behind the couch. "I thought Zaeed was a stretch, but then Joker said you two were really similar and well…"

"Bad guys." Shepard fired twice from her shotgun, then darted back down to charge her biotics, "Can we just focus on the bad guys?"

Kasumi wiggled her eyebrows mercilessly, "Bad guys huh? I thought you and Thane weren't-"

"Do you ever stop?" Shepard unleashed a torrent of biotic energy against the nearest unfortunate guard, shredding him to pieces as conflicting mass effect fields tore and warped around him.

Kasumi flung a flash grenade towards the secondary group that charged in after the first, "But he really likes you!"

"… he does?"

"I knew it!"

"Stop. I only asked because now I'll have to turn him down."

"Aw… why?" Shepard ignored her, flinging herself over the couch to kick over the coffee table for new cover. Kasumi vanished, then reappeared at her side. When Shepard didn't answer, she continued without her, "But it's so hard to find something good in a galaxy like this!"

"What makes you think we'd have something good?"

"Well you're all he talks about and your scars always seem better after you talk to him… and I don't know, are you really going to turn him down?"

Shepard rolled her eyes and gave her a sidelong stare, "What do you think?"

"I think you just want me to stop asking."

"Finally, a theory I agree with."

"You're no fun." Kasumi gave a long, exaggerated sigh, before vanishing to take out the last security guard. He dropped dead with a clean strike to the back of the neck, and Shepard stood up from her cover to press towards the second story of the mansion.

"Look, I just don't have time for a relationship," Shepard told the shimmering camouflage beside her. "I've got a galaxy to save."

Kasumi fizzled out of the shadows to hack the nearest locked door, likely checking each room for a valuable trinket to pocket, "And yet, here you are on what was going to be a date-traction with Thane."

"Ha-ha. Distraction." Shepard scowled, "And you heard what I said, I need to loosen up before your fancy party."

"Come on, it won't be that bad," Kasumi stopped rifling through a study to smile at her, thankfully forgetting her efforts to drag a pairing out of her. "Besides, you're going to love the dress I picked out for you!"

"That… is not a dress." Shepard frowned a few hours later, after she'd had a shower and they were safely back on the Normandy.

"It's a two-piece!" Kasumi insisted, shoving the strips of black leather at her.

"Bathing-suit."

"Oh stop," The other woman forced them into Shepard's unwilling hands, "Besides, you should be loose enough to fit in it," She winked at her, "And I could always get Thane to help you out of your civv-"

"Alright!" Shepard snarled, snatching up the horrid garment and throwing it across Kasumi's bed. She started stripping off her clothes while Kasumi stared politely out the window. "You don't think anyone will notice the red cobwebs all over my body?"

"Well I can think of a one perso-"

"Kasumi!"

The thief giggled softly, "Reconstructive surgery is pretty popular. So is reconstructive surgery gone wrong. This'll be even better than if you didn't have any. Everyone there will be too polite to look at them, and you'll practically be as invisible as I will."

"You can turn around now." Shepard sighed, running her hands through her hair, wondering if she was supposed to do anything stylish with it.

"You look perfect!" Kasumi squealed, balling her fists and clapping them enthusiastically. Then her eyes drifted down to Shepard's boots. "… almost." The smaller woman scuttled past her to dig through the chest beneath her favorite poster. After digging through silks and negligees Shepard did not want to know why she had, Kasumi pulled out a pair of high heels. Seeing Shepard's terrified expression, she rolled her eyes, "The longer you struggle, the more painful this will be."

"I'm a soldier, pretending to be a mercenary. Why can't I wear my boots?"

"You're an amazon, pretending to be a lady. No boots."

One embarrassing struggle later left Shepard grateful Cerberus had given her skeletal lattice, because she was sure she'd broken her feet to fit them into those heels. Following that, Kasumi had a brief moment of panic when she realized Shepard had the grace of an elcor in them.

"Just-just walk slowly… baby steps. Maybe no one will notice."

Shepard rolled her eyes, "Gee thanks," she muttered as she strapped her pistol to the inside of her thigh.

"I'll go rent us a car, you just… practicing walking, and meet me outside the landing bay."

"Practicing walking," She snorted to herself as Kasumi vanished, "What am I, fi-AH!" Her heel caught in threshold to the Kasumi's room and she collapsed face-first to the floor, right outside Thane's quarters. Shepard silently thanked his gods he'd stayed on Bekenstein to take care of something.

Which simply meant she bumped into him as she was leaving.

"Shepard," He steadied her unnecessarily, his hands like silk her bare skin, "I wished to speak with you before you left," He rumbled in his unnaturally deep baritone, sending a shiver down her spin he had to feel through his lingering hands.

"What about?" Her throat felt dry, she could see the green of his eyes so close to his face. His sculpted, perfect face with those 'come hither' lips and- down girl.

"I have something for you," Reluctantly, he released her, and removed a small glint of silver from his coat pocket. At first, Shepard took it for a knife, which would have made her weak in the knees. As it turned out, it was a necklace.

"Jewelry?" She groaned, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

"Not quite," Thane smirked, bemused by her blatant contempt for accessories. "It contains a small storage cell to power a kinetic barrier. The microcapacitors should also be enough to sustain your assault armor, should you have need of it."

"Thane…" Shepard was momentarily speechless, as no words seemed good enough for the thoughtfulness of his gift. Unsure of how to be thankful, she decided to be angry, "You were supposed to use the money for Kolyat."

"He is more than cared for." He assured her. He seemed just as composed, if not more so, which Shepard knew meant he was overcompensating for his anxiety. "It seems in poor taste to give you exact figures…"

Her fingers hovered unsteadily over the trinket, "I-…" Shepard blinked, and noticed Kasumi waiting for her over his shoulder. "I-should-go." She snatched the necklace out of his hands and stormed past without even thanking him.

Kasumi smirked devilishly at her when she reached the thief, clumsily affixing the gift around her neck. "So you and Thane…"


	10. Only Rain

Only Rain

It rains. It always rains on Kahje.

It is a dismal world of swirling whirlpools and forgotten islands. Gray storms and humid winds. This is no place to raise a family. To start over. To say goodbye. But no one seems to notice.

Kahje is a world like no other. Far beneath the crashing waves and murky waters, there is life. Far beneath cascading water painting glass enviro-domes, there is life. In the unseen ocean depths and sealed living spheres, there are all the telltale whispers.

But not here. Not on the shore between them. Here, there is only silence. Here, there is only rain.

There had been no cure. There had been no transplant. It came as no surprise. They hadn't spoken of it. And now they never could.

They hadn't seen a desert. He hadn't gone out fighting. There'd been no last words. She hadn't been there with him. There'd been no letters left to read. She'd found them all before.

No one is here with her. They have no right to be. They would be here for her; they would not be here for him. She is not cold. She is only honest.

The only other stands apart. Even now he is uneasy in her presence. He remembers who she is and how they met. The hit she finished for him. How could he forget?

He doesn't know the truth. They had never told him. Standing on the shore, she knows she never will.

They start to sing, and she tells herself to listen though she knows the words by heart. "The fire has gone, to be kindled anew," but they don't sound like bells to her, and for some reason that's what hits her worse than all the rest.

They weigh the body down with stones, and drift it towards the sea. But no one screams in outrage, and asks why she won't stop them. And no fists beat against her side, laced with blame and sorrow. The body sinks from sight, swallowed by the deep so fast there is no time to mourn; the sea is not cold. The sea is only honest.

She won't relive this. For her it only happens once.

He turns and leaves, for him it is enough. She knows she won't see him again. They were never close, and now they have nothing left in common.

Already, the memory is imperfect. She didn't count the stones. Watch the luminescence of the song. Time will take away the pieces, until the memory is as clear as Kahje's skies.

One thing, she knows she will remember. Of all the water that surrounds her, and the clear beads on her face, there are no tears. There is no reason.

Only the skies of Kahje could cry enough for her. And so there are no tears.

There is only rain.

Only rain.


	11. Take My Breath Away

Take My Breath Away

Thane wondered why he still came here. Perhaps for a place of tranquil familiarity, though Life-Support was no longer his quarters. His things had been moved to the captain's cabin, and life-support had been returned to its original function as a secondary armory, much to Vakarian's delight.

Where his cot once was a table rested with cluttered with weapons and ammunition. Even the table at which he sat, his tea growing cold in his hands, was littered with heatsinks and power cells. The view of the drive core, at least, would always be the same.

Thane tapped his fingers idly along his mug. He wanted to meditate, to be at peace with himself and his thoughts. The Normady had only recently finished repairing at Omega, just enough that Shepard felt they were flight worthy to dock somewhere else.

Which meant the interior of the ship was still in disarray, and his choices for solitude were limited. The parts of the ship that had been mostly untouched by the attack were crowded with crewmembers, still celebrating Shepard's impossible rescue. What was even more unfortunate was that the lounge had been spared, and most if not all of the crew chose to celebrate by taking advantage of it.

The party had been nonstop for days, drifting between renovations and drunken escapades. And drunken escapades creating the need for more renovations. He would have secluded himself in Shepard's room, but as the human saying went, he was 'banned to the couch.'

Thane sighed. They'd argued about the Collector Base after she'd finished meeting with The Illusive Man. 'I should have kept it, damn the ethics. You make me lose sight of what's important,'

'The soul of your species is important. Your soul is important.'

'Damnit, Thane, souls aren't real! Just like your gods, and just like this relationshit!'

He pulled himself out of his solipsism. That was always what it came down to. That was always what they really fought about. He hadn't known what to expect from a relationship with another species. He'd never felt affection for them before, and now he was sure he felt too much. Enough to keep him selfishly at her side, despite the pain it brought them both. In the very least, he was content the good memories outweighed the bad.

The doors to life support slid open, and he recognized the footsteps as Shepard's. They were distinct, boots on metal, left foot leading, purposefully advance just short of a run. He never knew what to expect when she entered, not that he'd ever let her know. She could be looking for a fight, a philosophical debate, time together… Her stride was always the same.

She stopped behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. He took it without hesitation, and she leaned forward to wrap both arms around him from behind and bury her head in his neck. They never apologized; he never wanted them to. They fought because he was dying; Thane would have been concerned if it didn't upset her.

"You smell like leather,"

"Unsurprising," He pulled one of her pale hands away from to place a kiss on the back of her palm, "Considering I am wearing leather."

"I mean you," She gave him a light squeeze. Her spine must have ached from the awkward slant she'd forced it into. "The bamf I'm with. Smells like leather."

"… the what?" He pulled her around him to sit in his lap.

Red eyes sparkling with mischief, she draped her arms back around him rather than answer. "Maybe someday I'll tell you what it means."

"Edi, what does bamf mean?"

The AI's spherical display coated the room in a shifting blue light. "An Earth-based acronym standing for 'Bad Ass Mother Fucker,' popularized in the twenty-first century by-"

"Edi?"

"Yes Shepard?"

"Go away."

"Logging you out,"

Thane chuckled and was rewarded with a glare. Standing up, Shepard uncoiled from him and fell into her old chair. Folding her arms across her chest, she pouted. It was almost cute. "That's cheating."

"You could have done the same when I first called you 'Siha,'" He pointed out, reaching across the table to take her hands. With a huff, she let him.

"I did. Have you ever tried to research an obscure culture that lives with an isolated species?" She ran her thumb over his fused middle fingers. Originally, it had been out of fascination. Now it was a habit. It warmed him to know they already had a few. "I couldn't find shit. Turns out I was spelling it wrong."

"Badass motherfucker..."

"It's just an expression."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised your term of endearment is filled with uninspired vulgarity."

"Uninspired? It took me all day to come up with a pet name for you and you ruined it under a minute."

"I have no need of one, Siha. I prefer –"

"I'll just think of another."

"Please do not."

She smirked at him, an enthralling expression whispering of temptation and unspoken desire. He tugged invitingly on her wrist and her face went flat. "We're going to Illium." She announced abruptly, remembering why she'd come to see him. Her fingers curled around his palms and squeezed to impart the gravity of whatever she was about to say. He stayed respectfully silent. "You told me I've done a lot for you," She took a deep breath and held his gaze, and for a brief moment, the fire in her eyes seemed real. "Well, I haven't done everything I could,"

"Siha, if this is about my illness-"

"It's not," She snapped. It was still a forbidden topic. Thane couldn't blame her. He could hardly bring himself to face it. "Before the Omega relay, when death was right there, you weren't ready." It shamed him to be reminded, but he kept quiet, letting her find the words, "You weren't at peace… I don't want you to die like that. I don't want you to die at all," She added under her breath. "I couldn't do anything then. I can now."

"I'm not sure I understand, Siha."

"I can give you peace. Irikah. Kolyat. All those missing years… The batarians couldn't have found you without the Shadow Broker. If not for him, it never would have happened," Her teeth ground together at the memory, imperfect and not her own, such was the extent of her compassion.

'I also wouldn't have met you,' Thane was about to say, when Shepard continued.

"Well I know how to find him." Thane was grateful for his initial lack of reaction. If he'd been too willing or unwilling, he would have been disquieted, torn between reconsidering his emotions and sticking with his instincts. Instead, he tried to stay neutral.

"… You're talking about revenge."

"I'm talking about justice."

"I've moved beyond such things," The words felt hollow.

"Lie to yourself. Don't lie to me. No one 'moves beyond such things.'"

"That is a jaded outlook."

"It's an honest one." Shepard scooted forward and pulled his hands up to her chest. "Thane, I want you to want this. We're going to Illium, and Liara and I are going to hunt him down. I want you to come with. I want you to be there." She brought one of his scaled hands up to her splintered cheek, "Maybe when you can say it's over, the memories will stop haunting you,"

He didn't bother denying it. He'd lost himself to solipsism in front of her more times than he cared to admit. "Just… meditate on it." Standing, she released his hands and walked around the table, pausing by his chair to kneel down and kiss the black diamond scale on his forehead. "And maybe when there's no one left to blame, you'll stop blaming yourself."

* * *

"Welcome back Mister Shadow Broker!" The drone screamed at her as she walked into the control room of the base. It bounced in place and spun in a happy circle. Shepard frowned and kicked it.

Its kinetic barriers sparked white, and it skittered away in fear. From the front of the room, Liara laughed. "If you and Feron hate it so much, you could just install a new personality program."

"I offered you the one of me," Shepard shrugged, crossing the vast empty space the original Broker's table had once occupied. She was glad the fat bastard was dead. She could still hear his voice in her head, like gargling gravel. 'I'll give Mr. Krios's son my regards.'

There was a dent in the floor off to her left, where the table had knocked Thane unconscious. She'd dove for Liara without any hesitation; she'd been so sure he would dodge it…

"It would just say it had a galaxy to save, and tell me to find the data myself," Liara shook her head bemusedly.

"How've you been Liara?"

"I'm good Shepard. Having all this information at my finger tips... Speaking of which, you still haven't checked the dossiers on your team."

"Liara, I would never..." Her friend raised an eyebrow at her, "Pass up an opportunity like that. The one by the entrance, right?" Shepard grinned rhetorically, and sauntered over to the terminal. She passed the dent in the floor again, and couldn't help but wonder if she'd been wrong about Thane.

If she'd been in his place, she would have jumped at the chance. And while he'd been at her side the entire mission, he hadn't treated it any differently that an everyday strike on a mercenary base. When it came to the final throw-down, he'd seemed more eager to meet another drell than kill the man-yagh-thing responsible for his wife's death.

_Maybe he's just a better person than you_. Even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't true. He killed for money and didn't hold himself accountable, abandoned his family, went on a killing spree, barely talked to his son… Shepard stopped herself. He might not have been a good person, but unlike her, he tried to be.

Shepard tapped open the terminal, wanting to pull up a chair and make herself some popcorn. She figured she'd start with the Illusive Man and work her way down the Cerberus ladder. She would not spy on her friends. She was not going to spy on her friends. She was most certainly not going… to…

Shepard clicked on the Thane Krios dossier. He didn't try _that_ hard to be a good person. He went from killing for money to killing whoever he thought deserved it. It was a compromise. So she followed his example and decided to compromise. She wouldn't spy on her friends; she'd just spy on her lover.

Shepard smirked to herself as she read through the file. She should have felt guiltier, but all she could think was how happy she was to have him. Listings of known kills, something called the One-Hour Massacre on Omega she'd have to make him solipsism about, preferred assassination methods….

What had the Shadow Broker said? Bringing an assassin was shrewd? The dossier just reminded her he wasn't 'an assassin' he was the best assassin. Her assassin. Completely and utterly-

Shepard blinked. Her eyes fixed on Chakwas' medical report the Shadow Broker had managed to get a hold of. None of it was surprising, except for the line that stood out obscenely from all the others. 'Viable transplant candidate but refused to be added to list.' Her fists clenched. She went over the line again and again, and every time it stayed the same. She was so intently focused the words merged into an angry blur. A horrible, disgusting, wrong-

"That son of a bitch." Shepard smacked the terminal off without bothering to read the rest of the dossier.

The sudden outburst made Liara jump, "Shepard, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," She lied, rolling her shoulder to avoid running her hands through her hair and yanking, "Thanks for letting me see these; I need to… go do something."

"Alright…" Laira looked bewildered, "Thanks for stopping by."

Shepard nodded distractedly and left, power walking back to the shuttle. When she got inside, she kept pacing, rather than sit down. All that bullshit about being afraid to die, when a way out was right in front of him. Maybe it had risks, maybe it wasn't permanent, but it was there. It was an option. It was time.

As soon as the shuttle was back in the Normandy's cargo hold, she kicked open the door and jumped out, much to the pilot's alarm. "Edi, where's Thane!"

"Mr. Krios is in your quarters, Shepard." The AI announced pleasantly from the elevator's speakers. Shepard punched the holo for the loft and paced. She had to calm down. Maybe it was an old report. Maybe he'd already changed his mind and she didn't know. Maybe there was a reason-… a reason for what?

The elevator opened up to her quarters, and Edi opened the door to her room so she wouldn't have to halt her stride. Thane was reading a datapad at her desk, where her ruined helmet sat on its stand, a constant reminder of the time she'd lost. The life she'd lost.

She knew what it was like to suffocate. What it was like to die. There was no reason to want that. No reason at all. "You son of a bitch!"

* * *

Thane stared at the hololock in front of him, and took a deep breath, locking his hands behind his back. There was no logical reason for his hesitation; the lock was green. But as everyone on the Normandy had come to learn, when the door to the main battery was open, it was only open for Shepard.

Anyone else was given an almost coldly professional reception, which Thane approved of. Vakarian was a born leader, but emotionally, he was closed off. His true feelings hidden behind a cocky façade, facial expressions limited by his scars.

Out of everyone on the ship, he'd likely made a poor choice, but Thane needed to talk to someone on a personal level, and didn't know where else to turn. Keying open the lock, he waited for permission to enter that never came, so stepped over the threshold to better make his presence known.

"Elasa and Flux Dance Mix." Vakarian said over his shoulder in greeting, typing away at the console.

Thane blinked both sets of eyelids, caught off guard, "I-pardon?"

"You were going to ask me what to get Shepard," Vakarian still didn't bother to look away from his calculations. "Wine and music. Her favorites are Elasa, an asari liquor, and the Flux Dance Mix from the Citadel." He glanced at him, visor whirling readouts Thane caught and registered as his vital signs, none of them favorable. Vakarian frowned briefly and turned back to his work. "I got nothing else, man. Sorry."

"I was hoping more for your counsel on what to say, as opposed to what to get," Thane rolled his shoulders back, feeling uncomfortable in the small space. There was only one escape route, and that was the way he'd entered from. He preferred to always have a way out. Vakarian evidently picked the best place to bunker down and fight.

"Haha-egghhh," The gunnery officer's laugh strangled into a cringe. "As irresistible as I am to women, I really don't have any experience apologizing to them." Regardless, he tapped a button on the holodisplay and turned around to lean his back against the terminal. Algorithms hung half-finished in the air, paused rather than closed, as a testament to his intrusion.

"But you have experience as Shepard's closest friend," Ordinarily, Thane would have turned on his heel and left Vakarian to his work. As it was, he intended to stay until inspiration struck… or Vakarian struck him. "She refuses to see me outside of the company of another, and goes so far as to relay messages through a medium. I'm uncertain whether I should wait it out, or force the issue…"

"Honestly, Krios? I'm with Shepard on this one." The turian rolled a kink out of his neck, "I don't get why you refused."

"There are countless others far more deserving than myself."

"Maybe," He shrugged, "But what about what she deserves?"

"'So do it for me!' She screams. Her scars split, tracks of red in snow-pale skin. 'It's not like you to make such selfish demands,' I snap at her. 'Yes it is,' she cries, tears of blood stream down her face. 'I'm selfish, and you're selfish! You're so ready to die that you're afraid to live!' Dark energy fills the room, countless fixtures lift, 'Get out!' glass shatters in my wake,'"

Thane shook away his solipsism, "… it's not about what she deserves." When he came back to himself Vakarian was pressed up against the opposite wall eying him warily.

"Heyyy not that that wasn't one of the creepiest things I've ever seen but can you never do that again?"

"My apologies, it was not my intent to unsettle you."

"Unsettled? No, I'm not unsettled. I'm settled. Completely settled."

"I'm not sure that makes sen-"

"So, yeah. Wine and music. Nice talking to you, Krios." Thane wasn't entirely sure how he ended up on the other side of the door to the main battery, only that the hololock had turned abruptly red. Ruffled, he straightened his cuffs and sighed. Vakarian obviously had no advice for him. Perhaps it would be better to ask Shepard's other best friend…

* * *

Thane gave a cough to announce his presence behind Tali'Zorah on the engineering deck. Despite her envirosuit, she was easier to read than her turian counterpart, gestures and tones making up for her lack of facial expression. Her choice of quarters was also far more comforting, as countless exits were available to him. Tali spun around, startled, with her hands up defensively. "Miss Zorah-" He started.

"Don't touch me!" She barked, scrambling back onto her console. Thane kept his hands locked behind his back to resist massaging his forehead. She obviously hadn't forgotten his and Shepard's… lapse of restraint… on Omega. "Ever."

Enginner Donnelly stopped beside them on his way back to his post, glancing from one to the other, "Oi, Tali, y'alright over there?"

"Nobody touch me!" She snapped, scooting away from both of them along the wall towards the exit.

"I was hoping to talk to you alone…" Even before Thane said it, he realized it was futile. Tali all but ran from him on sight. He supposed it would be disquieting for her to know he was intimate with her best friend.

"No!" Tali cut him off, "I can't. I have to-fix my suit." She scuttled away and smacked the holo for the door to the hall. "Thank Keelah for the suit, I'm safe in the suit…" she mumbled to herself as she fled.

Thane ultimately decided to wait it out, but Chambers had somehow gotten wind of their conflict - hardly a difficult task for a perceptive soul. Which meant that everyone on the Normandy was aware of the discord between them by the end of the day. And everyone he hadn't wanted to ask advice from suddenly felt the need to impart their wisdom on him.

* * *

"Thane, glad I caught you. Wanted to talk. Medical matters. Aware Shepard more irritable lately. Wondered if physical discomfort related to emotional state. Need more lotion to counteract effects of drell-human skin contact? Imagine her rash would be…. Unpleasant."

"Ah-no…We-no…"

"Oh. No physical basis? Purely emotional? Apologies. First hypothesis not always correct hypothesis, after all."

"…"

"In that case, recommend flowers."

* * *

"Augh! About time I found my battlemaster's mate! I'm tired of her sulking! We haven't KILLED something in days! Fix it!"

"The fact that Shepard trades her allegiances like playing cards is likely more to blame for-"

"Words! Noise! Fix it like a mated pair and fight her! Whoever wins is right!"

* * *

"Heard the krogan bitchin' from down the hall. Guess the honeymoon's over, huh?"

"Considering we were never married-"

"Never lasts with women. I had a good thing goin' with this asari once, till she sold me out to the Blood Pack. Just be glad Shepard didn't sell you up the river."

"I highly doubt-"

"Bet you didn't do a thing wrong either, eh? Women. Like bloody unstable bombs, go off at any minute."

"…"

"You know, I remember this one time-"

* * *

"Fuck, Krios, watch where the hell you're going."

"My apologies I was just… departing Massani's company…"

"That old bastard never shuts up."

"… as you say."

"Hey, not that I give a fuck, but what's up with Shepard?"

"How do you mean?"

"She hasn't come to chat in a while, and she's the only one I can stand for more than a minute in this Cerberus hellhole."

"It's somewhat personal."

"Mommy and daddy fighting, huh? Just fuck her so shit can get back to normal."

"… It's not exactly that simple…"

"Whatever."

* * *

"Krios… normally, I would welcome your presence, but you cannot hide out in my room forever."

"I was hoping to join you in your meditations."

"You are an honest man, Sere Krios, and you lie poorly."

"My apologies. I merely felt the need for a reprieve. No matter where I turn, I can't seem to be alone with my thoughts."

"The same is true of me at this moment."

"…"

* * *

"You in my armory for a reason?"

"It is Shepard's armory. And I have full access to the Normandy."

"Uhuh. You got full access to a lot of things around here."

"Who Shepard gives clearance to is hardly any of your concern."

"Maybe not. But you two sure go out of your way to make it our concern."

"Only when you go out of your way to notice, Mr. Taylor."

"You saying I'm jealous?"

"I believe those were your words, not mine."

"I think you should go."

"For once, we are in accord."

* * *

"… you have been in life-support with me for the past fifteen minutes and not spoken. Did you require assistance walking back to your quarters, Miss Lawson? Forgive me, but you seem… less than sober."

"This domestic disturbance is affect-… affecting morale. Why can't you men just do what women want? You know what I would like a man to do for me, Thane? I would like to get pregnant."

"You're suggesting I get Shepard pregnant…"

"God no! She'd make a terrible mother… and you're a bad father!"

"… I should depart."

* * *

"Krios-Assassin," Amonkira, grant him patience. Even the geth had a suggestion. "Recommend reaching consensus with Shepard-Commander to facilitate unit cohesion. Current state of emotional discord decreases operational efficiency."

"Thank you, Legion. I am aware."

"…" The geth's head panels shifted and twitched in a way Thane liked to muse signified thought. "We treasure our awareness. Organics do not seem to appreciate theirs, as too often, nothing is done with it."

* * *

Thane felt his composure slip as his frustration grew. Certain his self-control would shatter if he was confronted again, he decided to seclude himself where no one would look. Feeling juvenile but mercifully safe in the vents near the loft, he lost himself in prayer. He was right in declining to put his name on the transplant list. His concern was his soul's redemption, not his body's greed. He couldn't deny an innocent a chance to spend more time with their family and loved ones or make peace with their fate, all for a few stolen years with Shepard.

His every moment since their meeting had been stolen. She'd pulled him from off the shore and given him a chance to atone, given him far more than he deserved. He couldn't dishonor the love she'd entrusted him with by grasping at straws for more time, as if what he'd been given wasn't enough. Couldn't fill either of them with false hopes born of selfish desires.

She'd understand. Eventually, she'd understand and come see him. If not… he could always write another letter.

"Hey Thane, whatcha doing?" Gods give him strength, it was not her fault she'd shattered his calm. He was already on edge, his nerves frayed to the last strand. It was not her fault he hadn't taken her into account when he'd chosen his hide-away.

"Hello Miss Goto." He tried not to growl, exhaling slowly through his nose and not opening his eyes.

"Spying on Shep?"

"No, I was not."

"You're awfully close to her room."

"I am aware of this."

"You two still not talking?" She mumbled sagely, lying on her stomach next to him in the vent and propping her chin up on her palms. Thane massaged the bridge of his nose to block the migraine growing behind his eyes.

"Keiji and I had a bad fight once," The thief rolled over to stare at the top of the vent, locking her hands behind her head. Her hood fell back at the motion, revealing her face and a mess of dark hair that she took no notice to. Strange, that she was comfortable around him when she took such great pains to conceal her identity around everyone else.

"He brought me a single red rose to apologize," She continued obviously, twisting her hand in the air above her. "It used to be my calling card; I'd leave it in place of whatever I took. I was so angry with him until he said the rose was for his heart, because I'd stolen it… and you know what's funny? He was the one who convinced me to stop leaving them. Said I was just being sentimental."

She went silent, lying next to him in the vents, letting everything she'd said linger in the air. The silence had almost become comfortable by the time she continued, "I guess what I'm trying to say is just because you were right about something, doesn't mean you weren't wrong about it too." She pulled her hood back up and crawled back the way she'd come.

Thane sat in the dark of the vents for a long while, trying to return to his meditations and prayers, but serenity escaped him and the gods were silent. He'd tried to confront her, but she'd given Edi orders to refuse his access to her cabin. Admittedly, he hadn't tried very hard, as he knew several points of entrance the AI had no control over.

When he reached the vent overlooking her quarters, she was seated at the desk in the sunken half of her quarters, elbows on the desk, hands buried in her silken black hair. There was nothing at the desk with her, save for her old helmet and a holo of him. She'd placed them side by side, and looked to be staring at both.

He could have unscrewed the grating and dropped into her room without a sound. Instead he twisted around and heaved bodily with both feet, sending the grating flying into the opposite wall and clattering noisily to the ground. Shepard didn't bother to look up.

Thane dropped to the floor, then moved to stand behind her. Waiting for an acknowledgement that never came, he placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a light squeeze. Rather than reach up to take his hand, as he'd done with her, she spun out of her chair and aimed an elbow for his face.

Thane twisted away from the blow, grabbing her arm and twisting it around her back, while simultaneously kicking her off balance. Shepard lost her center of balance and he quickly had her pressed face-down against the table. "If I'd known you were in such a mood I would have brought my mask."

"Fuck you," Shepard snarled into the table, trying to worm out of his grip.

"Maybe after you give me a safe word, Siha."

"Don't call me that. I'm not a damn angel." Thane released his grip on her wrist and quickly backpedaled out of her range, which proved overly cautious on his end. Shepard spun around and gripped the table hard enough to turn her knuckles white, likely to keep from attacking him.

"No, you most certainly are not." He agreed so readily it caught her off guard, making her release the table and calm down by some small margin, "But you are a Siha."

"They're the same thing," She snapped, pushing off the desk, then continued before he could lecture her on the variations between the two, "Whatever. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to talk to you. Just get out."

"I will not." Thane took a step towards her and Shepard took a step back.

"I gave you an order, Krios," She glowered, "Get the hell out of my room."

"I have no intent of obeying such an order." Stealing himself, more emotionally than physically, he walked forward until the two of them were inches from each other. As this range he was risking a knee or elbow to a variety of unsavory places if she managed to catch him off guard. "I'm not leaving." He wrapped a hand around her upper arm, stiff and unyielding, tensed to strike. "I won't leave you."

"Yes you will," She smacked his hand away. "You will because you won't get a transplant. Because you'd rather die than spend another year with m-"

Thane pressed his lips to hers to silence her. It wasn't a kiss. She didn't melt in his arms or go weak in the knees; she was never so easily swayed. It was simply a kinder alternative than placing his hand over her mouth. Regardless, he kept his hands on her shoulders rather than release her, trying to massage away the almost painful tension in them. "It's not that simple."

"Yes it is."

"You are my reasoning for living, Siha. You know I'd give anything to stay with you, but the life of another is not mine to give."

"You can't believe that. You've killed without hesitation for decades."

"I have much to atone for."

"So what difference does one more life make?"

"…Siha…" Thane blinked his inner set of eyelids at her and frowned disappointedly. Shepard shoved both hands against his chest, and he took a step back more to placate her than out of necessity.

"No. What makes some waste of skin- scales- whatever, any more worthy than you? Why shouldn't you have the same chance?"

"Because I don't des-" Shepard slapped him then caught his chin in her hand.

"Yes you do," Her glare didn't soften, if anything it hardened, the cybernetic lenses shifting behind already red eyes. "Yes you do," She pushed herself up and kissed him, the taste of rage and sorrow in mouth. Thane wrapped his arms around her and lifted her back to the bed, tripping and falling onto the mattress.

He ran a hand through her hair, brushing it away from her face when she fell beside him. Her eyes were surrounded with dark rims from lack of sleep, and her scars were as clear as they always were. Her color was what concerned him, but it too was the same as it always was. Shepard never cried. It would be adding literal salt to literal wounds.

"I love you."

"I know," He smirked and she slapped him. "Siha, I never thanked you for taking care of the Shadow Broker,"

"You didn't need it."

"Perhaps not, but you tried to help me while I refused to help myself, and that is what counts. I did not realize it before, but I am at peace, I am alive… though only with you."

"So stay with me," She did so much for him, yet he was hard-pressed to think of what he'd done for her. Would his soul suffer so for delaying its return to the sea for another year? "Get the transplant, you're worth it."

"You have more faith in me than I in myself," Thane traced one of the scars on her face; the glow beneath seemed to dim at his touch, though it may have just been wishful thinking.

"Well yeah," Shepard pushed herself up on her elbow to stare down at him, the room's lighting shifting along her face as she moved. The new angle made it clear it wasn't just wishful thinking, "I have to. I'm your Siha, remember?"


	12. Harder to Breathe

Harder to Breathe

"Joker!" Shepard's voice blared across the ship-wide intercom. "Flip this bitch and get us to the Citadel. I need a drink."

"Aye, aye Commander," The pilot's voice announced to everyone on the Normandy, "One forty-eight hour shore leave coming up."

Such was how Thane was rudely awakened from his meditations, not that it was entirely unexpected. The crudeness, the shore leave, or the whir of the elevator as it descended to his level.

No true Siha would take kindly to what had happened on the Collector Ship. An angel of protection, and she'd led her crew into a trap. She'd inadvertently endangered all their lives, and while he knew it was in no way her fault, he also knew she would blame herself.

He waited for the telltale storm of heavy footfalls on metal that signaled her approach to his room. It had become something of a ritual for her to confide in him when not everything went according to plan.

"_Well that mission went up shit-creek without a paddle," Her feet clatter to the table. Gravel and sand dislodge from the soles of her boots. I'll have to clean the entire room when she leaves._

"_Shit-creek…?" It never helps to learn her expressions. She rarely reuses them. _

"_It's just an expression." She smirks; 'You could stand to be disarmed' she once rationalized her impropriety. _

"_You could have saved the colony," I point out. The reason for her decision escapes me, but I imagine her choices come from Arashu herself, and a mortal such as I could never hope to understand. _

"_I did." She glares, as though I blame her for the thousands dead at Watson. I do not. "The batarians wanted to destroy the Alliance's foothold in the Traverse, and they failed. The colony will repopulate, and the Alliance will be just as strong as it always was."_

"_And the colonists themselves?" She passes the gods' judgment so casually, as though her soul were impervious to doubt. _

"_They knew the risks when they accepted the incentives…" Her eyes flick away from mine, in thought and not shame. It is strange to see a species with imperfect memory in the throes of remembrance, struggling to bring the past to the present, when for me they so easily merge. _

"_You sound as though you speak from experience." My words pull her back to the present, and her eyes settle on me again. The red on white of her cybernetics stands out and makes it apparent I've overstepped some invisible boundary. _

"_Just as a soldier," _

"_A soldier shouldn't have to make the choices placed on your shoulders."_

"_No one should," She pushes herself out of her chair, signaling the end of our chat. The simple motion leaves me feeling hollower than I care to admit. "But no one else will."_

Thane broke from his solipsism when the storm of Shepard's approach never came. The elevator opened to his level, and the thunder of steps grew dim as Shepard went in the opposite direction. Thane blinked, disconcerted until the footsteps returned with a heavier set in toe.

"That two-faced son of a bitch, I swear he gets a kick out of trying to kill me," Shepard's rant reached him and doubtless everyone else on the crew deck.

"It does seem to be a running theme in the galaxy lately," Vakarian returned.

"Haha, very funny." The laugh that followed ruined the sarcasm of her comment, "I'm gonna wipe the floor with you,"

"You're going to try." The rest of their conversation was shut out by the closing elevator doors, leaving the deck in silence once more. The stillness that followed was no different from any other day on the Normandy. The gentle hum of the drive core and the silent draft from the vents should have been as comforting as they always were.

Thane shouldn't have been unsettled. Shepard and Vakarian were best friends. There was no reason she wouldn't turn to him to ease her soul's turmoil. He shouldn't have been… been what? Jealous? Envious?

Thane steepled his hands together and settled uneasily into his meditations. He wasn't sure what he expected. There was no reason for her to turn to him, save that he would have turned to her.

"_I'm here for you, Thane. Whatever you need." Her words are too soft, her smile too light. They are just words, words she would give anyone. She can't know what they mean to me._

Irritated by his one-track train of thought, Thane stood and pushed his chair in. He'd thought their relationship was clear in moving beyond friendship, but perhaps he was being foolish. She seemed just as if not more overly friendly with Vakarian, Chambers, Morinth… They'd spoken no vows; she could be with whoever she wanted.

Eventually, Thane gave up and dropped into the vent beside his cot. In the very least, he wouldn't be alone in his subterfuge. He'd heard Miss Goto follow the two of them as soon as they entered the elevator.

"_Oh, sorry," High-pitched and pleasant, a voice that seems to know no sorrow intrudes on my solitude. "I was just-um…"_

"_Mapping the vents as well?" I finish for her, bemused. She settles in to sit, as if we'd somehow planned this meeting._

"_Yeah. You bored too?" _

"…_I've come to tire of the predictability of my memories." She smiles at my words, and there is a kinship in the bittersweet expression._

"_I know what you mean."_

"Harugh!" Shepard's graceless scream pierced the silence of the vents. Thane watched from the striped view of the grating as she rushed Vakarian only to have him throw her effortlessly over his shoulder and onto the mat.

"You're not taking this seriously," He chided, frowning down at Shepard. They'd both stripped to their underarmor in what looked to be a rush to thrash each other, armor scattered haphazardly around the sparring mat. "I have more trouble with punching bags."

Shepard flipped back onto her feet, then started an onslaught of elbows and knees at the turian, raving the entire time. "You should have-heard his smug ass-sitting there in his cushy leather-Shepard you need me-I don't need anyone," Vakarian let his guard down at her final statement, and she punctuated it by landing a punch to his gut and kicking his legs out from under him. Shepard tackled him and twisted his arms above his head, pinning him to the ground. "Gotcha," She smirked.

They stayed in the same lock long enough for Thane's eye to start twitching when Vakarian heaved and spun them, reversing their positions. "Please," He chuckled, "I always come out on top." Thane glared daggers into the back of the turian's head.

If Vakarian didn't get off of her this instant he swore to the gods he was going to drop down from the vents and-

The turian rolled off Shepard and simultaneously hefted her to her feet. "Thanks, Garrus," She sighed, running both hands through her hair, "I really needed to punch something."

He shrugged and started gathering their armor up, "You know you could have just asked tall, dark, and scaly to spar with you."

"Haha. Not funny." She scowled.

"It was kind of funny." He started rolling up the mat while she dressed, "Seriously though, I'm always going to be here, but he-"

"Don't." Shepard snapped. "Look, I spend time with whoever I want, whenever I want, and right now that's you. Besides, if Thane wanted to come see me, he'd come see me." She sighed and sat down heavily on the rolled up mattress rather than let him put it away. "Half the time I feel like he'd rather remember talking to me than actually talk to me." She glanced around in confusion, then stared at Vakarian, "Do you hear thumping?"

Thane froze and stopped banging his fist against the vent. Damn him. He was so lost in the past he was forgetting the present, and abandoning the women in both. "He can't be that bad if you're already hallucinating," Vakarian snorted, yanking the mat out from underneath her to return it to its storage locker.

"Thane and I are just friends, and that's how it should be," Shepard clarified once she'd gathered her bearings. "I don't need another connection Cerberus or the Alliance or gods-know-who can use against me."

"You're lying," Vakarian laughed as the two of them headed towards the elevator, "You said 'gods.'"

"What?" They vanished from Thane's line of sight, "No I didn't."

* * *

Thane sat at the desk in his room, staring out at the drive core and not quite seeing it. The sphere shifted and pulsed with sea-blue light before him, but he couldn't bring himself to appreciate the mystical dance. He tried to pray, to lose himself in the past, to meditate, but he kept reliving the conversation he'd inadvertently overheard.

He'd turned around in the vents with the intent to leave and returned to his quarters, when the last of Shepard and Vakarian's dialogue had echoed in the vents after him. "Besides, he's dying. I don't need a relationship with an expiration date: consummate before Tuesday."

Thane groaned and dropped his face to the desk. Perhaps this was what the sea would feel like, hard and unyielding, rejecting his damned soul when it came to beg entrance to Kalahira's domain.

… This was unproductive.

He didn't even bother moving when the scuffle from the vents behind him signaled Miss Goto's arrival. "Oh come on," She giggled when she saw his prostrate form. "It wasn't that bad. Don't mope."

"I am not moping," Thane mumbled into the cold metal against his face.

"Looks like moping." Kasumi climbed nimbly into his room and took Shepard's seat in front of the drive core. Lifting his head, he pressed the back of his fused fingers against his forehead and stared at her sidelong through his hand.

"Did you need something, Miss Goto?" He asked his palm.

"I just thought I'd see how you were."

"I'm dying. All else seems trivial by comparison."

"… You know you're kind of a downer." He decided not to dignify that with a response. The thief shifted uncomfortably in her seat and glanced about his room. It was likely far too sparse for her tastes, his only personal possessions were the weapons neatly arranged in the case on the far wall.

Her hooded eyes settled there, more specifically on the Locust Shepard had given him after the Bekenstein mission. "I didn't switch them," She declared without warning. "Well… I did, but then I switched them back. … and then I switched them again and-well, anyway. The point is right now it's the real Locust." Thane tried not to twitch at the thought that she went through his weapons when he wasn't in his room. "Shep wanted you to have a famous assassin's weapon, which, you know… creepy. But I think she really-"

"Did you need something, Miss Goto?" Thane repeated flatly, fixing her with an even stare. Kasumi blanched and shuffled out of the chair.

"Well, we'll be at the Citadel soon. We're all going to celebrate being alive at the Dark Star. I thought you of all-…" Kasumi trailed off at his dark frown. "Anyway, um, are you coming?"

"No, I am not."

* * *

Thane sat scowling at the dance floor in a dark corner of the Dark Star. Shepard had commandeered the entire club for her crew, and drinks had poured as endlessly as the rains of Kahje since they'd entered. He did not wish to be here. He needed to meditate. He needed the quiet solitude of his quarters, the familiar pull of the drive core, the familiar room where he knew the embrace of the sea was always one breath away. He needed to control himself.

The torrent of emotions he felt was akin to a wild storm. It would bring nothing but ruin to anything it came in contact with; carrying away all but the sturdiest foundations and forcing innocents to rebuild from almost nothing. Knowing, in his metaphor, they'd be rebuilding their relationship with him, Thane doubted anyone would bother, and so assumed it was safer to isolate himself.

The only other person not participating was seated beside him. They made a formidable image: two guardians watching over their charges, waiting to escort them safely back to the ship. Except to Thane, who knew the one beside him wasn't anything like she seemed.

"My warning still stands." He growled to Morinth. She'd tried to kill him on Tuchanka, and he'd told her what to expect if she tried the same with Shepard.

"You caught me in a moment of weakness, Krios," Morinth smiled, speaking with the voice of one long dead, Kalahira rest Samara's soul. Morinth had warmed to him considerably when she realized his and Shepard's relationship wasn't as serious as she'd assumed. "You needn't worry, it will not happen again."

Thane kept his eyes off the demon. They were trained on the Siha gracing mere mortals with her presence. Shepard's tight leather dress hid almost no skin, which served to hide the fact that she had no business being on a dance floor.

Her boots were apparently all she needed to feel comfortable. Her vest had been lost in the crowd, and only a thin wrap of black kept her decent. The same wrap seemed determined to ride up her pale legs, cracked red with cybernetics. The scars almost gave off the illusion of sectioned skin, like ivory scales… Her sunset eyes rimmed with dark lines from lack of sleep put a drell's natural tones to shame.

She was currently attempting to dance with Vakarian, and only the fact that her attempt was failing miserably kept him from clenching his fists.

"How are you so sure?" Thane ground out when Shepard spun away from the turian to grab Chambers and press the two of them chest to chest. The yeoman's earlier warnings that a relationship with Shepard would be 'unhealthy' suddenly made a great deal more sense.

Thane took a deep breath to calm down. His Siha had asked him to come. His soul said no. His body saw the dress and said yes. He couldn't storm out in a jealous rage now. It would be petty and pointless, only Morinth would notice.

"Because unlike you," Morinth smirked, standing with a fluid grace born of centuries of practice, "I have time."

She sauntered towards the dance floor, heels clicking across the ground, to stand purposefully close to Shepard, who was far more intoxicated than she had any right to be. She twisted herself and Chambers around, hands in places Thane wished he hadn't seen, when she noticed Morinth next to her and released the yeoman abruptly. Shepard grabbed the Ardat-Yakshi's face and pulled her in for a rough kiss, much to the shock of everyone in the club.

Everyone in the crew sober enough to notice stopped and stared at what they thought was their Commander making out with the stoic Justicar. They were too stunned to notice Thane get up from his seat and walk across the floor until his fist connected with Morinth's face. Ignoring the strangled screams and confused shrieks, he grabbed Shepard and threw her over his shoulder.

The crew fell into a stunned silence as he turned on his heel and left with her. They likely thought the two of them had gone mad, Shepard for kissing Samara, and Thane for punching her.

Shepard kicked futilely at his chest while smacking his back with weakly curled fists. "What the what?" She slurred, trying to crawl out of his grasp. Crowds parted in shock at the drell with a scantily dressed human slung over his shoulder, screaming at him the entire time.

"Silence, Siha," He snapped in reply to a 'put me down you bastard'. "You are not thinking straight."

Thane stopped at the nearest transport station and hailed a cab, dropping her into the passenger's seat and closing the door. Thankfully, Shepard was apparently far too inebriated to figure out how to open it. Climbing into the driver's seat, he programmed the aircar's autopilot to take to them to the Normandy's dock.

When the taxi had drifted into the high-speed lanes of the Citadel's air traffic, Shepard finally seemed close to figuring out how to open the door. Thane twisted out of his seat to trap her between both his arms and keep her from inadvertently flinging herself into space. "What are we?" He glared at her to distract himself. Their faces were far too close in this position.

"Well I'm drunk," Shepard leered at him, "And you're an ass."

Thane closed his inner eyelids, annoyed with himself for expecting a worthwhile answer. The hand on his chest made him open them again. Shepard, forgetting they were fighting, started running the tips of her fingers along the small exposed part of his torso, staring in unabashed fascination at his scales. "Does it help you breathe?"

"No." There was no reason for him to continue hovering over her. She'd clearly ceased her suicidal attempts to jump from the cab. "It reduces humidity."

"Is it hard to breathe?" She slid her fingers up his chest, along his throat, and pressed them over his lips, presumably to feel him exhale, as if he had any breath left in him to do so. They were fighting, Thane reminded himself. She was intoxicated. Intoxicating…

The aircar thudded to the ground, and Thane rolled off her and flung open the door. Shepard looked to be pouting, and shoved away from him rather than let him carry her back onto the Normandy. When the two of them reached her room, she spun on him, trying to press their lips together and failing miserably. "What the hell, Thane?" She muttered when she realized he wasn't going to let her, "Why did you bring me back here if not for a quickie?"

"Siha, you are not yourself," He reached out to steady her as she stumbled down the stairs to the lower level. "We can discuss it when you're sober."

"No, you ruin- you ruined my evening, and I want to know why!" She ran her hands through her hair and glanced at the couch and the bed, but seemed to realize on some subconscious level that if she went to either she'd pass out.

"As I said, you are not yourself."

"It's called drunk, asshole, and if you were cap-… cap-…" Shepard stumbled over the word and gave up, "if you could have fun, you'd be drunk too."

"I'm capable of a great many things, Siha," Thane allotted with a nod at nothing in particular, "Watching you demean yourself is not one of them."

Shepard's face scrunched up at his diction, and it took her fogged mind a great deal longer than usual to figure out what he'd said, "You're jealous!"

"You're inebriated," The scales on the back of Thane's neck prickled, annoyed with both of them. He had no right to be jealous; she had no right to lead him so far along that he was jealous to begin with, "Go to sleep. We can speak when you're sober."

"No," Shepard shook her head to clear her thoughts and only managed to make herself dizzy. "We can talk now. You don't get to be jealous." She stumbled forward and grabbed him by the buckles to his jacket, "Or decide who I can be with. We're not together. I can do what I want, you're not with me. You don't get to be jealous."

"An easy solution for that is for you to control yourself. I won't stand by and watch you touch another in such a fashion."

"Oh you won't, huh?" Shepard panted into Thane's face. Her hands were ringed around his jacket, pulling it taunt against his skin. He should turn around and leave. He should pry her fingers off, go back to his room, and beg her forgiveness in the morning. He shouldn't focus on the warmth of her breath on his face, her exposed skin segmented with scars, the life-giving fire in her eyes…. "Why not?"

The pull for what Thane did next was more compelling than the call of Kalahira herself, and just as unavoidable. He wrapped one arm around her waist and pressed her into him, the other locked behind her neck to force her face up to meet him.

Their lips met and he crushed her against him with all the desperation of a dying man. Shepard clung to him just as fervently, and for a brief instant, as long as he was in his Siha's embrace, Kalahira's held no sway. When he finally pulled away from her, his illness paled in comparison to the breath she'd taken from him. "Because you're mine."


	13. Bad Trip

Bad Trip

Shepard swore and kicked off her covers. She didn't know why she bothered. It was oppressively hot, with or without them. This was your idea, she reminded herself. Originally, she'd been content to use the intercom whenever she wanted to see her assassin.

That is, until Thane had torn it out of the wall in a fit of rage. She'd been buzzing it repeatedly for close to an hour while he was trying to meditate, and well…

Shepard sighed loudly, and glanced down at the drell beside her. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully. She shouldn't disturb him…

"Hey Thane?" He mumbled an unintelligible reply. She shook his shoulder, "You asleep?"

"Not anymore, Siha." He grumbled, turning over to bury his face in her pillow.

She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, "Dreaming about anything?"

"Drell do not dream," he told the pillow, "We have discussed this… several times…"

"Right, right…" Eidetic memory, something about needing to meditate to process events instead of dreaming. She tapped her fingers on her knees. Her knees felt sticky. Could knees sweat? She ran her hand through her hair and the moisture on her forehead smoothed it back.

She managed to stay silent for several minutes, until the sweat running down the back of her neck made her smack herself. "Hey Thane?" A grunt. "It's not too humid for you is it?"

"For the third time: no, Siha." Shepard chewed on her lower lip and stared at him. His scales were a vibrant emerald with onyx stripes. At least, the ones that faced her were. Apparently, while his skin gave her a rash, her skin dried out his scales. She hadn't noticed it, and assumed Mordin was pulling her leg again, but staring at his back she realized it was true. He'd spent all day scratching at his hands, which were a shade duller than the rest of him.

Shepard sighed and threw herself back on the bed. Dry air was good, but dry scales were bad. Hot was good, humid was bad. She'd been so worried about him staying here she'd turned the dehumidifiers in her room as high as they would go. It burned her throat and dried out her mouth, but Thane at least seemed content, if no different from usual.

Of course, it also meant she couldn't sleep.

Shepard threw her hand over her head. The fact that she left the skylight open didn't help her any, but she refused to close it. She had to remind herself there was nothing more than a thin barrier between her and sudden death. Be it a hull breach, or the Reapers, she wasn't the immortal she'd thought she was.

Shepard rolled over to face Thane, who seemed to have fallen back asleep. Shepard ran a hand over his shoulder and gave him a light squeeze. His muffled reply sounded like 'no.' Ignoring the protest, she pressed the heels of her palm into his shoulders and started up a light massage. His complaints were completely garbled, and she grinned to herself.

Thane never passed up a massage. Denser muscle tissue meant it was easier to tense up or knot, and apparently drell masseuses? Masseusi? Had to take care to knead in one direction, least their scales catch on their client's. Shepard could do whatever she wanted. She moved her hands down his back, smirking. Things he'd never even-

"Siha, go to sleep," Thane rolled over and frowned groggily up at her, the lines around his eyes darker than the eyes themselves. Shepard ignored them.

"I was thinking I could sleep with you instead," Sliding a hand down his side, she leaned into kiss him when he brought one knee up to push her off, perhaps a little faster than necessary. Winded, she rolled off and wheezed. "Sonofabitch."

Thane flipped on top of her and gave her a quick kiss, "Goodnight, Siha," He said innocently, as if he had no idea how forceful his push had been.

Grabbing his frill, she held him in the kiss and wrapped her legs around him. It would be a cold day in hell by the time she gave up that easily. "Siha," Thane's groan was in no way a passionate one. He propped himself up and held an arm against her stomach to keep him annoyingly out of her reach. "My soul is willing, but my body is tired." He growled out against her unrelenting mouth.

Pulling his head forward, Shepard whispered where she imagined an ear should have been, "No one said you had to participate as a Whole." She punctuated her words by biting his frill. It worked wonders.

Thane dropped down to wrap an arm around her waist and press the two of them together. Shepard scratched her hands down his neck, enjoying the feel of his lips on hers and trying to ignore the fact that they were drier than usual. Mordin had waved off the molting as a "complex nuance of drell-human relations," and promised to look into a solution. Until then, they just had to deal with it, or "refrain from skin-to-skin contact" which was sure as hell not going to happen.

The hand that ran along her waist and squeezed was dry and itchy compared to the smooth scales of his back. Shepard bit his lip and resolved to ignore it. She was not going to let it get to her. She was not going to let it get to her. She was already sweating enough in the sauna she'd turned her room into to compensate. Thane tugged on her side in an effort to roll them over and she held him in place with her legs. He could wait if he wasn't enthused. She wanted to start tripping first.

When the black stripes started to shift along his skin, looking apart from the rest of his verdant scales, she relaxed in his arms enough for him to flip them. She was following the moving patterns with her hands when he wrapped an arm around her back and pressed her into him, immobilizing her against his side. "I refuse to be disconnected for this. Go to sleep, Siha."

Shepard barely heard him. She flattened her palm out along his chest and watched the black scales envelope her skin, fascinated. "Thane," She tapped her fingers on his chest and the scales flew off, only to swarm back on her skin again, "Your scales are eating me."

"That's nice, Siha." His voice rumbled through her entire body, and she watched the noise travel down her arm and echo around the room. When the sound hit the blue glass by the door, it shook the water and all the fish within it. Thessian sunfish, Illium scalds, each tiny creature in the tank had something to say.

Shepard shifted her head up to stare at Thane, waiting for him to answer them. He looked like he was falling asleep. "Aren't you going to answer the fish?" It seemed outrageously rude not to.

"That's nice, Siha," He mumbled back. Shepard frowned, then decided to ignore the fish as well, listening to the three-chambered heart beneath her ear instead. It didn't seem loud enough. His lungs didn't seem loud enough. She could barely hear anything over the damn fish.

Shepard shoved out of his arms abruptly, turning to glare at the far wall. The blue glow from the fish tank spread over the entire room, shifting from light into water until the entire room was underwater. Moving underwater was like moving through plasma, and when she glanced back at Thane, he seemed far too still. The water covered him completely until every scale was a deep sapphire. "Thane," She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, "Thane get out of the sea!"

"Siha. Go to sleep. Please." Odd he wasn't worried. Maybe they'd both gone to the sea. That didn't seem nearly as frightening, only she didn't like this water. It tasted like fish.

"I'm going to get new water." Shepard announced, flinging herself out of bed and running to the bathroom. Thane's only reply was a muffled grumble as he pulled a pillow (which turned into a piece of coral) over his head.

Thane had finally, mercifully, fallen asleep when Shepard's scream forced him back awake. Crawling out of bed, he made his way to the bathroom, snarling half-hearted prayers the entire way, "Amonkira, give me patience. Arashu, I beg you, please make your Siha go to sleep…"

The door slid open for him, and what he saw stunned him into silence. The mirror was shattered, red blood and broken glass pooled over the edge of the sink and onto the floor, leading a hellish path to the fallen angel curled up in the corner.

"Siha, what happened?" Thane grabbed a towel from the closet, and quickly splashed it with clean water before falling to his knees in front of her. Her hands were ruined, filled with bits of broken glass her lattice shunting was struggling to push out from her skin. Her facial scars had split, and her skin was lined with violent scratches, as if she'd tried to tear them open. The lenses behind her eyes whirled and clicked in terror when they focused on him, and she scrambled backwards against the wall when he tried to wipe the blood from her face.

"Don't look at me! Don't look, don't look." She clawed at her face with her glass-ridden fingers, "I'm Saren, I'm just like Saren,"

Grabbing both her wrists in one hand, Thane struggled to remove the broken pieces of the mirror. He should have assumed the side-effects Doctor Solus had told him about could go either way. For the most part, her hallucinations amused him and little else. They wore off quickly and harmlessly enough; they didn't make her shatter her mirror and tear at herself with the pieces.

Thane pursed his lips and silently cursed himself for not watching her. Shepard was still fighting him, rambling nonsense. He removed what he could from her hands, before he reached with the now-bloodied cloth for her face. She thrashed violently away, smashing against the wall and slicing her forehead on a loose bolt. "Don't look at me!"

The sight physically pained him, and it was all Thane could do to grab her and pull her into his arms. Twisting so he sat against the wall with her in his lap, he smoothed back her bloodied hair and started crooning softly to calm her.

"There are Reapers inside me, I can see them," She rambled into his chest, not-quite-sobbing. "I can see their upgrades. Just like Saren, I'm just like Saren," Nails dug into his arms and drew blood; a few scales even ripped loose, but he refused release her, "I let them, I let them."

"They're just cybernetics, there are no Reapers," Thane mumbled, "You're not Saren." Cradling her with one arm, he reached out and grabbed the cloth beside him to clear the blood away from her face. Shepard twitched unhelpfully away from his hand. Sighing, he settled for rubbing her back and holding her until she calmed down enough to let him help.

"You were in the sea," Shepard hiccupped eventually, which Thane took as his cue to clean off the rest of her. "I left you in the sea."

"I remember, Siha," He sighed, wincing as he removed a particularly jagged piece. Shepard hardly noticed, "You were going to get new water." She nodded idly and dropped her head to his shoulder. When he felt he'd done as much as he could for her self-inflicted injuries without medigel, he picked her up and carried her back to the bed.

"You're very green." Shepard mumbled inanely when he set her down.

"I know." He tucked her in if only to keep her from getting up. "Siha, I'm going to clean the restroom, can you stay here?"

"You're really very green," Sighing, Thane kissed her forehead and made sure she'd have trouble unraveling herself from the covers.

"I know, Siha." Returning to the wreckage she'd made, he gathered up the broken glass and wiped away what he could of the blood. Thane imagined Cerberus would have no trouble replacing the mirror, and threw it out as well. Checking on Shepard every over minute only saw her cocooned as he'd left her, and he went so far as to scrub the entire restroom, wishing he could scrub away the memory.

This entire episode was his fault. He knew she couldn't sleep because she'd skewed the temperature of her room to his liking. He should have humored her; he should have kept his quarters in life-support; he shouldn't have let her get up.

The restroom was sparkling by the time he finished. With nothing left to delay him from returning to bed, he couldn't help but sigh. The air was markedly easier to breathe, he'd noticed as soon as he'd walked in.

_ She smiles at me wrapped in leather, wine glasses held in snow-pale hands. Our room in disarray; her futile efforts to clean it are endearing. The air is far drier than usual. "Nothing to say? Did I take your breath away?" The room is perfect. She is perfect._

"Heheh, I said that." Shepard chuckled from the bed, trying to free herself from the blankets and only succeeding in tangling herself further. Thane blinked; he hadn't meant for his solipsism to be verbal, but then Shepard always ruined his composure. Climbing back into bed, he stole most of the blankets for himself and pulled her over to rest on his shoulder. Shepard traced some invisible pattern up to his lips, then contented herself with running her thumb over his cheek. "So you think I'm perfect, huh?" She mumbled, making it clear some of her lucidity was coming back to her.

"Go to sleep, Siha."


	14. Kill For Me

Kill for Me

Krios catches her eyes in the crowd and gives her that familiar look. The look that says, "I know what you are and what you want, but you can't have it because it's mine." She hates him for that look. She's tried to kill him for that look.

There is no fear in those black eyes: those eyes as black as her heart. There is only mockery. His scaled lips curl in a knowing smirk as the familiar warmth spreads through her, born of hatred and not of passion. The passion is only for his lover.

In her four hundred years, Morinth has never known jealousy. Envy, desire, craving, but never jealousy. The woman in front of her inspires it and so much more. Shepard is a shining beacon of power and confidence, with an inner fire so strong her body can barely contain it.

Her hellfire eyes fix them with a critical look. They've come so far, and still she has no words of encouragement. No praise for all they've accomplished. Morinth muses they could return safely from this suicide mission, and still she would not commend them. Not even for perfection.

She simply expects it. Demands it. Receives it. Those crimson eyes settle on her for a brief instant, and Morinth can't help the shiver that runs up her spine. She never expected to be here, to come this far. She was certain she'd grow bored eventually, and move on once she'd had her fun. Morinth knows now she can't leave, even if she wanted to. Shepard would kill her first. The thought just makes her all the more enticing.

Those inhuman eyes that bore into her soul, and all the souls Morinth's taken. A smirk flashes across her lips, a smirk that's just for her and her alone. A smirk that tells her none of the souls will ever compare to the one she can't have.

The craving makes her ache and fogs her mind, so much that when Morinth tries to remember how she got here, the memory changes, perhaps the very past changes. In her memories, Shepard is the one in her lap, her red eyes gone black, whispering softly in her ear, "Look into my eyes and tell me you want me. Tell me you'd kill for me. Anything I want." And in the false-memory, Morinth simply nods along, unable to resist.

Shepard breaks her gaze, and the spell ends. It flits to Krios, and the two share a look that no one else sees because no one else is looking for it. A look that simply says "You're mine," and makes Morinth's hands clench behind her back. Then that too ends and Shepard is speaking with Lawson.

Cerberus operative is supposed to be the perfect human specimen. But her eyes don't pierce your soul, and her lips don't speak words you never thought to hear. Her voice doesn't evoke desires you didn't know you had, her looks don't speak of secrets you'd kill to reveal.

For all she promises perfection, it isn't Lawson who made Morinth speak up, and offer a way through the seeker swarms. Shepard's eyes lock with hers, but Morinth doesn't flinch or falter. Shepard wanted excellence. Morinth had more than enough to give. Lawson takes the idea and runs with it, but Shepard doesn't seem to hear her. Morinth keeps the smile in her eyes alone. This moment is hers and hers alone. She's more than earned it.

Shepard calls Krios and Goto to her side. No one thinks twice of her choices. Their task calls for precision, and the two put the rest to shame in their skill. Morinth knows better. Shepard's picked the two who know the truth of who she is. It is a silent concession to let her guard down if escorting them proves too much for her, and it makes Morinth's blood boil.

Shepard doubts her skill. Doubts her ability to hold her own and hold her mask at the same time. She sees off Vakarian's fire team, and then moves to join her. Morinth straightens and walks with all the stiff poise and grace of her mother. She is more than capable of proving Shepard wrong. She refuses to let herself slip now, not in front of Krios. Not when he walks beside her and Shepard, giving her that look.

Morinth throws up the barrier, and it is her mother's voice that leads them. Not once has she used her own voice around the others; she doesn't plan to start. She lets her jealousy feed her. Forces herself to watch the two of them together. Doesn't let herself wonder why she has to prove herself, or who she's proving herself to.

But it's not Krios Shepard watches over as they advance, it is Morinth. At first, she is insulted. Then she reminds herself that protecting her protects them all. It is the barrier Shepard's watching over, not her. She can't fight back like this. More than once, Shepard leaves the barrier to assault their enemies when she feels Morinth isn't moving fast enough. Samara's voice reprimands her each time.

Soon, just keeping up is trying. Sweat pours down her face, her muscles begin to tremble. The seeker swarms are all that she can hear, and her legs are shaking as she walks. She calls in her mother's voice for Shepard to hurry. She won't slip up, not now. She'd die first.

Morinth isn't afraid of death. She's not even afraid of meaningless death. As far as she's concerned, all death is meaningless, but that doesn't mean she's eager to die. They run towards the doors together, and Goto is the first one through. Morinth feels herself wavering as she stumbles towards the door. Krios has the rear guard, and Morinth realizes she has only to drop the barrier, and they would have him.

Krios would be dead. Shepard would be hers. It would be flawless. And its then, in that moment, that she realizes they're waiting. Goto threw herself to safety; they could have followed if they wished. Shepard is at her side, firing into the swarms, screaming… but for her, and not for Krios. And even in the chaos of the moment, Shepard is still screaming her mother's name.

Morinth gathers the last of her strength, and unleashes it in a tidal wave against the swarms. The final act takes all she has, but she's not surprised when Shepard grabs her arm in a vice grip fierce enough to draw blood, and shoves her through the doors.

The doors close behind the four of them, and they've done the impossible again. Shepard grins, but says nothing. No praise. No commendations. She expected nothing less. Morinth gave her nothing less.

They're all the same out here. Here, there are no angels. Shepard turns and runs to the far door to let in the fire squad, Morinth and the others on her heels. Here, there are no demons.

It's only then Morinth realizes she won't kill them out on the battlefield, where death already fills the air with its vibrant pulses and dark cadence. From the look Shepard gives her, she already knew long before Morinth did.

It's a look that says "You're mine."


	15. Cure For Your Itch

Cure for Your Itch

Shepard was having mixed feelings about her day. On the plus-side, she'd spent the previous night partying and woken up with Thane in her bed. On the downside, she woke up with a hangover and the night had been completely innocent by her standards.

Plus-side again: they'd decided to be exclusive. Downside: they'd decided to be exclusive. Plus-side: they were discussing their relationship. Downside: the discussion had become more of an argument, and riddled with stipulations, one of which was that Shepard justify her choice in teammates, more specifically Morinth, who Thane somehow knew was Morinth and not Samara.

Plus-side… Thane sounded hot when he was angry. Downside: she was insanely itchy for some reason, and her plus sides were getting weaker and weaker. Shepard sighed, trying not to scratch at herself and focus on what Thane was saying.

"She put her trust in you."

"She swore an oath to me. It's not the same thing."

"That doesn't justify killing her. I'm not sure anything does."

"And killing Morinth instead? What justifies that?"

"She is a monster."

"She's a person. A redeemable one."

"You can see the light in the darkest of souls, Shepard, but I fear in this case you create light where none exists."

"Don't call me Shepard. Morinth hasn't killed anyone on the team yet."

"She tried."

"And failed."

"That's hardly a comforting sentiment."

"She won't try again, if that's what you're scared of. We… talked."

"…"

"She was desperate. It was my fault for ordering her not to kill… like that. But after she tried to kill you, I told her to get her fix, and she didn't. She hasn't fed off anyone because she's with us. I'm saving more people keeping her here than Samara ever was hunting her. So she'll always be a killer. We're all killers, but we're also saving the galaxy. You'd think that counts for something."

"I find it difficult to believe you killed Samara out of a desire to save Morinth."

"Alright, so maybe I killed her because Morinth is more useful."

"I find that difficult to believe as well."

"Why? Because I'm some perfect angel? Because if I did you can't call me 'Siha' anymore?"

"Because you are not so thick-headed."

Shepard glared at him. She had a reason, several reasons. _Tell me you'd kill for me. Anything I want_. "I don't have to justify myself to you, Thane."

"No, you do not."

"… oh. Well. Can we talk about something else, then?"

"Of course, Shepard."

"Don't call me that."

"Would you prefer 'Commander'?"

"I'd prefer 'Siha' asshole."

"And I would prefer an explanation."

"That's how it is?"

"That's how it is."

"…Samara killed countless innocent people chasing Morinth, more than would have died if she'd just left her alone. Her "oath" compelled her to, and it also would have compelled her to kill me the second she was released from my service. You were there; I don't take threats like that lightly."

"One of the benefits of my memory is that I can perfectly recall every time you've lied to me."

"For fuck's sake, Thane. That was a good answer."

"The truth would be a better answer."

"What if that was it? Would that be enough for you?"

"Yes."

"So why don't we just drop it?"

"Because I need your real reason."

"Why?"

"I shouldn't have to explain that trust is an integral part of any relationship."

"Trust? Since when has trust had anything to do with our relationship? That's something from the man who waited ages to tell me he had a wife, let alone a son."

"That was petty of you. And irrelevant. We weren't in a relationship at the time. Do not change the subject."

"I gave you an answer. Answers. Whatever."

"Eloquent."

"Now who's petty? What are you expecting, Thane? I chose an Ardat-Yakshi over a Justicar. There's no divine reason for that. It's not something I can just rationalize away for you. So if you're waiting for me to redeem myself, you're going to be disappointed."

"I never said you needed to redeem yourself, but if you think such, perhaps you should wonder why."

"Don't turn my words around on me. Look, if we're supposed to trust each other, can't you just trust I had a good reason?"

"I trust you, Shepard, but I don't think you trust yourself."

_Tell me you'd kill for me. Anything I want_. "I do. We're done here."

Shepard hadn't meant for it to sound so final, but as she stood up and went for the door, she felt like she was never coming back. Worse, from the look in Thane's eyes when she released his hands, it was evident he thought the same. And neither of them did anything to stop it.

They were both petty. Shepard paced in her room the next day, running her hands through her hair. She had to think of a convincing reason. She had to make something up to tell him so he'd just let it go and forget about it. Damn him, he shouldn't even need a reason. She was Commander fucking Shepard and she didn't justify herself to anyone. Deep down, she wasn't even sure she knew how.

Shepard threw herself down in front of her terminal, resolving to distract herself with paperwork. She hadn't trusted Samara from the start. The Justicar was Cerberus's suggestion, not hers. The woman made her skin crawl; her moral compass was broken, if not completely absent. Her greeting and every word thereafter had been a threat. Where every other teammate gave Shepard unspoken consent, Samara had given her constant reminders of her oath. A looming shadow of disapproval, unabashedly resolved to kill her when the mission ended. Maybe as soon as the mission ended.

At least with the others Shepard knew what to expect. Even the most unstable of them looked to her for guidance. Samara had looked to her for help killing her own child. Family was supposed to mean more than that.

Miranda spent her life protecting her sister. Jacob had searched for a father he thought dead for ten years. Mordin fought for his nephew. Grunt respected the line of a father he'd never met, despite his name being dishonored by his own people. Thane… Thane was an asshole.

She'd been uncomfortable with the mission from the start, and been more than upfront about it. She went along with it anyway, but when she met Morinth… when she met Morinth…

Shepard shook herself. She couldn't tell him why she'd saved her. At best, he wouldn't understand, and at worst, he would. The paperwork stared innocently up at her; she hadn't touched it. She needed to talk to Morinth, she decided, scratching at herself. She'd been doing that a lot lately…

The more she focused on it, the itchier she felt. Maybe someone had put itching powder in her clothes. Or insects native to one of the planets they'd been on lately had gotten into her armor. Damnit, why was she so itchy!

In a fit, Shepard tore off her shirt and flung it across the room. Her sports bra quickly followed, and she attacked her chest with her nails viciously enough to draw blood. Her palms were just as itchy. This was insane. Shepard rushed to the restroom and glared at herself in the mirror, then stumbled backwards in shock. Well that was… that was just fucking great.

Her palms were covered with an angry red rash. So was her chest, and the back of her neck, but only in the shape of four-fingered hands. Her eye twitched as she stared at herself; her backside was just as uncomfortable. There was no way she was going to Chakwas with this.

She could hardly believe this was happening. Swearing nonsensically, she dressed in an awkward haste, realizing her shirt was on backwards when she got into the elevator. Fuck it. It was just going to come back off soon anyway.

When she got to CIC, she stormed past Kelly (whom she was no longer supposed to flirt with, damn Thane) who gave a shocked, "Oh my," and burst into the lab.

"Mordin! Help!" Shepard flung off her shirt and it flopped down in front of the startled scientist. "The itch!"

Mordin blinked, looking down at the discarded shirt and slowly following it to its source. He blinked several more times, sniffed twice, and to her horror, burst out laughing. He quickly covered it up with a cough, but Shepard felt embarrassed all the same. "Yes, yes," He waved her inside and started rifling through his cluttered shelves, "Am sure I can help, only need a moment." Shepard sat on the exam table, looking miserable. "Have to ask, how-ah… extensive?"

"We didn't go all the way, if that's what you're asking." She started scratching at her rash again, if only because he hadn't told her not to.

"Have a lotion here somewhere," The jittery salarian said over his shoulder, pulling out bottle after bottle and clucking his tongue in disapproval at them. "Not ideal, mind you. Can pick up something better at next dock for-ah… next time."

Shepard sighed and finally stopped tearing at her skin. "I don't think there's going to be a next time, Mordin."

"Oh…" The doctor turned around, holding what Shepard hoped was her salvation. "Am sorry. Would express sympathies, but personally can't sustain courtship emotions. Can't really rela-"

"Just give me the lotion, Mordin." Shepard frowned, when the door to the lab chose that moment to open.

"Doctor Solus," Thane was scratching at his hands as he wandered in, scales flaking off onto the floor, "I find myself in an awkward position-" He stopped, noticing her sitting covered in rashes the shape of his hands. "… which just got more awkward."

"No, no, no! Not awkward. Fortunate. Would have gone to you next." He scuttled over to Shepard and she snatched the lotion out of his hand before he forgot he was holding it. Mordin turned back to his shelf obliviously while she smeared it over her rashes, modesty be damned. "Drell-human liaisons complex, after all. Dry-scales regrettable side-effect, avoidable with precautions. Have something that may be able to help molting discomfort."

Thane looked decidedly uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally. His throat had turned a deeper shade of red, which Shepard took to be his version of blushing. Regardless, he strode over to sit beside her, scratching at his palms and underneath his jacket. He glanced at her lotion and raised an eyeridge. Shepard shook her head.

"So uh… you don't usually… um… molt?" Smooth, Shepard. Real smooth.

Thane blanched and offered up a shrug in reply. "Highly irregular once drell reach adult size," Mordin answered for him as he rummaged through his things, "Usually associated with puberty. Strong social stigma."

"Itchy?" Shepard threw out at either one.

"Yes, yes. Very uncomfortable," Mordin finally found what he was looking for, and shuffled back to hand a different bottle to Thane, who looked just as if not more mortified as she did, "Shedding out of cycle, scales can regrow improperly, painful either way for new scales to be exposed to sensations." Seeing they were both cared for, he wandered back to his work station. "Probably best relations discontinued. Won't happen again."

"Discontinued?" Thane looked between the two of them as Shepard leapt off the exam table. Mordin made a small 'o' of surprise with his mouth, coughed, and suddenly became very fascinated with his terminal.

"Thanks for the lotion, Mordin," Shepard blurted, grabbing her shirt as she ran out the room without bothering to stop and put it on.

Shepard threw herself into the elevator and punched the holo for her quarters. The doors were about to close when a scaled hand grabbed them, and slammed them back open to reveal Thane glaring at her. He stepped inside with her and coolly hit the same button, frowning the entire time. "Now you have two things to explain."

"I don't have to explain anything," Shepard snapped, wishing she could be as collected as he was about everything. She didn't want to talk about this now, or ever. All she wanted to do was slather herself in lotion and stop the horrible itch he'd given her.

"I-… suppose not." Damn him, why did he have to give up so easily? Couldn't he tell she was too uncomfortable to have a serious conversation? He looked like he was trying to crawl out of his own skin, and he still wanted to have a philosophical debate.

How was she supposed to salvage this? With some cheesy one-liner later? 'I've been itching to see you.' 'Hey, I've got all this left-over lotion and no reason to use it.' 'Got an itch you can't- Oh gods her lips itched. Oh gods she thought gods. And she was still doing it and-

"Si-… Shepard, are you well?" Thane's voice broke into her panic. She started and realized they'd reached her quarters ages ago, and she'd been standing in the elevator chewing madly on her itching lips.

"Yeah, no, I'm fine." Shepard dragged her feet leaving the elevator, half-expecting him to follow. But all he did was hit the holobutton for the crew deck and straighten his jacket. This was not happening. Shepard smacked her hand in the door and slammed it back open as it was about to close. Thane looked bewildered that she'd mimicked him. "Are you coming?"

"I have no interest in being where I am not welcome."

"Damnit Thane, I shouldn't have to stroke your ego and your-"

"Alright. I'll accompany you."

Shepard wadded up her shirt and tossed it into a corner, then quickly did the same with her sports bra. Thane developed a sudden fascination with her fish tank. "Knock it off," Shepard flung herself down on the couch and started smearing lotion over her rashes, hissing in pain whenever it got in her scars. "It's nothing you haven't seen before."

"But not something it seems proper to see again." He started tapping his fingers against the glass. Thane forced himself to observe the fish swim idly about in the tank rather than watch Shepard's reflection in the glass. Part of him wondered if this relationship was even worth it. The other part wondered if the argument was even worth it.

The reasons she'd given him were good enough. Eliminating a threat. Saving a lost soul. It shouldn't matter if she didn't trust him with the truth. It just simply didn't make sense for him to be worthy of her and not worthy of her trust.

Maybe he was fooling himself with all of this. He should just-

_"I should leave," Hollow words. I can't let go of her. She sees right through me._

_ "You should stay."_

"Come away from there," A hand on his arm broke him out of his memories. Thane was reminding himself not to turn around when Shepard continued, "I'm decent, kind of."

Thane massaged his forehead and let himself be led to the couch, staring at anything but her. She'd lazily thrown her shirt on without bothering to button it, but he supposed it was better than the nothing she'd been wearing before. Taking his lotion away from him, she started unbuckling his jacket, eye-contact sorely lacking for both of them.

"I couldn't kill her." Shepard told the couch. Thane hadn't been expecting her to explain. She was incurably stubborn, and he'd been trying to think of a way to fix this without needing her to. She tossed his jacket aside and it crumpled on the floor. It took almost everything in him to suppress the desire to get up and fold it.

"I went to Afterlife expecting… I don't know what I was expecting." She unzipped his vest and folded it down against his waist the way it had been last night, then started rubbing Mordin's oil for him into her hands. "A monster? Some hideous demon? I thought I'd have to act worse than I did at Donavon Hock's, but I didn't. I was just… myself." Shepard picked up his hands and started working the oil into his palms. It felt as natural as one of their usual discussions in life-support, save that she was staring at the floor.

"I went in there and forgot the mission. I saved a dancer, an undercover cop, and beat up would-be muggers before I remembered I was supposed to be some chic clubber. And the next thing I knew I was on one of the best dates of my life. I didn't have to hold anything back, afraid of what she'd think. I wasn't putting on a face for my date, my friend, my crew…

I agreed with everything she said, Thane. Everything… When Samara came in, I was angry. And then I was terrified. Because Morinth was just like me. A murderer who killed her way across the galaxy for fun was just. Like. Me. When she and Samara fought and they ended up tied, she said the same thing I would have to get me to help her. She just said she'd be useful, and I couldn't think of any other reason I would have given someone to save me.

So I saved her, because I couldn't kill her. I couldn't kill myself. I need her here. I need to know I'm not like that. I need to know if I'm any better than that. If she can change. If-I just… I just need her."

Shepard took a deep breath and let go of his hands, which she'd started to rub raw. She reached up to run her hands through her hair, then pulled them abruptly back down when she remembered her shirt was unbuttoned. The simple motion was jarring, as it made him realize the extent of her shame.

She stood up and walked around him, then started silently working the rest of the oil into his back. Thane brought his feet up onto the couch and draped his arms over his knees. "I was unaware you had so little faith in yourself, Siha." He caught one of the hands on his shoulder and held it, running his thumb over her palm. "Thank you for revealing what I was too blind to see. I should not have pressured you so."

Shepard rested her forehead against the back of his neck. "Why do you have to make everything about you?" She chuckled weakly.

"Our conversations have to stay interesting somehow, Siha."


	16. Be My Escape

Be My Escape

Shepard knew this was a terrible idea. Kelly would notice she'd stopped flirting with her and wonder why. She'd eventually track it down to scuttlebutt, and Kasumi would obliviously tell her everything. Her and Thane's relationship would be reported to the Illusive Man before it had even begun.

Mordin's lab was safe for now. It was completely debugged, and Shepard trusted no one would be able to sneak past the hyperactive scientist who only slept an hour a day. Thane's room was clear, he cleaned and checked it regularly with an almost OCD fervor. Her room… her room she wasn't sure. She'd had Garrus go over it for bugs the day he'd arrived, and every now and then when they played poker (she swore he had a serious gambling problem). It didn't mean they couldn't rebug it, or that EDI wouldn't simply inform the Man. Maybe she already had.

He'd use it against her. He'd find a way, she knew he would. He already made it perfectly clear he was keeping tabs on her closest friends. He'd gotten half the colony of Horizon abducted revealing Ash's location, and almost gotten Ash killed along with them. Wrex was only untouchable because there was no way a Cerberus agent could sneak through Tuchanka. Liara had already gotten involved with Cerberus saving her.

Garrus and Tali were only safe because they were with her, what twisted form of safety it was, dragging them to hell along with her. She couldn't help it. When she'd seen the dossier on Archangel, she'd known who it was. She was sure the Man had known too. She'd managed to hack into Miranda's terminal and check his reply to her report, a snide comment about how Garrus would be useful keeping her comfortable. Smug bastard.

She hadn't wanted to recruit Tali. She hadn't ever wanted to recruit Tali. She always seemed too young and innocent to involve in any of this, but knowing Cerberus knew where she was… it was just better Tali be close. Especially after what Cerberus had done to the Migrant Fleet.

Shepard hated being here, if only because she didn't hate being here. Cerberus was doing something to save the outer colonies, when the Alliance turned its back on them. They focused on the long-term, and didn't let ethics get in the way of saving lives. They'd given her back her life, her ship, her crew… It was everything she wanted. It was perfect, and it shouldn't have been.

Nothing bothered her. Her meetings with the Illusive Man ended with her smacking her chest armor in a casual salute before heading eagerly to the next mission. It was a rare day she remembered the Alliance and the Council considered her a traitor, loyal to terrorists, and that Cerberus all but owned her. She knew what the Illusive Man did to those that betrayed him. She knew eventually she would, and everyone she cared about would suffer for it.

She'd worked every angle so far. She'd noticed her yeoman's attraction to her, and worked it until Kelly practically glowed when she said her name. It paid off. Messages from the Alliance slipped through the yeoman's fingers. Reports the Man would never let her see appeared on her screen, all because Kelly didn't bother to filter them.

It had backfired on her once, Shepard remembered bitterly. She'd invited Kelly back to her room for dinner, and the next day there'd been spam in her inbox. Normally, it wouldn't have bothered her. Kelly had let a few slip for shits and giggles, bad porn ads that started her day off on the right foot. But the day after they'd had dinner, there'd been an e-mail about Kerpal's Syndrome in her inbox. Shepard had lost it.

She'd dented the terminal closing it. The crew had scattered when she started barking orders. She'd snapped at Kelly, Joker, anyone who crossed her. She'd sent them on a mineral run and sequestered herself away in her room, getting roaring drunk and talking to her fish. It was somewhat less than productive.

Outbursts aside, Shepard usually made it a point to get on her crew's good side. She talked with Miranda and Jacob regularly, until the two had all but poured their life-stories on her. She bought better meals for the crew, played Skyllian-five with the engineers, one-upping Cerberus every chance she got. She didn't want a knife in the back when she least expected it, but she was sure one was coming.

The closer they got to going to the derelict Reaper, the more she felt like she was losing it. Half the time she felt like a feral beast, looming over her friends in a corner, twitching and snarling at anyone who came too near.

Seeing the wreckage at Alchera hadn't helped her at all. If anything, it had made it worse. Names and tags of twenty people whose loyalty had been forged through blood and who'd gone out in flame. She'd gone through mutiny with them, trusted them more than she trusted herself.

The new crew's loyalty was to Cerberus. She'd gone through lunch with them. Shepard didn't trust half of them as far as she could throw them.

Shepard threw herself away from her terminal and went to sit on her couch. She leaned forward tapped her Prothean artifact, watching it ripple and hum in displeasure. For some reason it always helped calm her. It felt familiar, like a long-lost trinket she didn't know had been missing until she found it. She was sure it had something to do with the Cipher in her head, but tried not to think about it.

She was being paranoid. She needed to relax, but even her Prothean orb had its limits. She wanted to invite Thane up, but was sure EDI or someone would spy on them if she did. She had to do something while they made their way to Aite. Tapping the bobble as she argued with herself, she finally decided to go down and see him instead. EDI had no feed to life-support; the only thing they'd be subject to would be a chance of Kasumi spying on them.

Shepard stopped by Gardner to grab a new cup of tea for him. She thought it tasted like tears and agony, but Thane drank it almost religiously. Maybe it was religious… she'd never asked. Why had she never asked? The door opened to reveal Thane at his usual spot, staring out at the drive-core. Shepard had no idea how he hadn't gone insane by now. She wouldn't be able to spend her days meditating or praying. Her record so far was two hours before her humming had made Thane slam his hand on the table in a fit. She hadn't tried to meditate with him since.

"Do you need something?" Thane rumbled without looking back at her. He could probably see her reflection in the window anyway. Shepard set the tea down in front of him, then wrapped her hands around him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Why do you always ask me that?"

"Because I'd like to know if there's anything I can do for you."

"Just being here is enough."

"Well, I'm here." He reached up and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, nothing short of a contortionist's miracle, in her opinion. Shepard started fiddling with the buckles to his jacket. "Siha, what are you doing?" Thane tried to twist his head to look at her and she bit his frill to punish him.

"I thought of something you can do for me."

"Did you?" He stayed obediently still, then annoyingly still, as he refused to raise his arms for her.

"Move your arms." Shepard trailed kisses up his neck, and was rewarded with a soft rumble for her efforts and little else.

"I'm not sure this isn't a clever deception for you to take my jacket and leave again."

"That was one time."

"My jacket didn't match my jumpsuit for the entire day. It was traumatizing."

Shepard smothered in a laugh in his shoulder, knowing he was only half-joking. Pushing away from him, she took a few steps back and sat down on his cot. She didn't bother trying to look seductive. She'd tried it once and he'd asked her if she was tired. Apparently lidded eyes for her meant sleepy, not sexy. "Alright, so take it off for me, Krios."

Using his last name always worked on him. He stood up and pushed his chair in (OCD-typical behavior she'd come to adore from him) before moving to the center of the room and making his best efforts to take off his jacket alluringly. Given that it was obscenely tight leather, he failed miserably, and ended up yanking at his sleeves rather than sliding out of them.

Shepard bit her lip to keep from laughing; he was making a show of fighting with his jacket, and from the looks of it, the jacket was winning. When he finally got it off, he neatly folded the sleeves over and laid it out on the shelf above his cot. Shepard gave up and started chuckling. Grabbing his hand, she yanked him down to the cot with her.

Thane sat obligingly beside her, running his hands up and down her arms. Shepard pressed their foreheads together and sighed, running her fingers over his earrings. "I want to kiss you."

"I can lock the door if that's what you wish," Thane mumbled, trailing a hand behind her neck and kneading pleasantly at the tense muscles.

"No… I'm not going to make you watch me trip out in your room." Shepard sighed, crawling into his lap and running her nails down the back of his head. She tried not to touch his skin with her hands, despite how smooth his scales felt beneath her fingers. They still had to stop at an actual port and pick up… oils… so they didn't make each other's skin fall off. Which, of course, meant she had a mission to take care of on a research planet in Sector Nowhere Cluster Fuck.

"It's hardly a chore,"

"We'll be at Aite soon… Whatever Project Overlord is, I doubt it has anything to do with drell-human relations gone wrong."

"Or gone right."

"Haha," Shepard unzipped his vest and slid it off his shoulders, "I probably shouldn't show up tripping. It's just bad manners."

"I eagerly await the day you're truly concerned with proper etiquette." She gave a soft hum and ran her hands along his chest, in what she couldn't help but appreciate as a double-edged sword. He'd be ridiculously itchy later, but wouldn't do anything to stop her now.

Thane growled a half-hearted protest and planted a kiss on her neck to nullify it. She was enjoying her ability to torture him when Thane pulled her shirt off and started running his hands along her back. Ah. Right. He could do the same thing to her. "Touché, my scaled Adonis, touché."

"Adonis?"

"Maybe someday I'll-"

"A character from ancient Earth mythology, recognized as the companion of a Goddess of Love and often dying before her. I did not expect such a cultured metaphor from you, Siha."

"… I didn't know that…"

"Ah. What did you take it to mean?" His hands never faltered on her back. He didn't even seem to think twice about it. Shepard took a deep breath and tried to focus on the stripes that curled around his sides to distract herself. She'd offered something just as eloquent when she'd first seen him without his vest on. If she remembered that drunken evening correctly, all she'd said was 'stripes.'

"Nothing. It doesn't really have a deep meaning to humans anymore."

"So thus far your endearments for me have been uninspired vulgarity and obsolete metaphors…" He shifted to lean back against the wall, pulling her against his chest and wrapping his arms around her waist. The position did nothing helpful, as now they'd just have full-body rashes instead of hand-shaped ones. Shepard smiled anyway, the sadomasochistic hug was his way of telling her he knew how distressed he'd made her.

"It was better than watermelon-lips." Thane went silent for a long time, likely listening to his translator give him a detailed explanation of what a watermelon was. From the ever-growing frown on his face, it was an extremely unhelpful account. Glancing between her and his jacket, she felt the gravity shift around him as he gathered a small amount of biotic energy.

Just another part of their relationship Shepard adored. Neither of them had to worry about discharging built up static before they touched each other, like they would have if only one of them was a biotic. Nestling into his shoulder, she watched him wrap the dark energy around one of his pockets and drag his omnitool over to himself. It fell into his palm and lit up the room as he looked up a holo of a watermelon on the extranet. "That was incredibly lazy, Thane."

Thane ignored her jeer and closed his omnitool once he found a picture. "I sincerely hope you don't think my lips look like that."

"Excuse me, Narcissus."

"Should I explain your metaphor to you again, Siha?"

"You're just bitter because you look like a fruit."

"… Even taking my translator's most literal interpretation of that, I'm still offended."  
"You are not."

"Deeply."

"Well how can I make it up to you, Mr. Krios?"

"Stop bringing me tea."

"You like tea!" Shepard bolted upright, her reaction far more vehement than either of them expected.

"All things in moderation, Siha. I more than appreciate the sentiment, but you once brought me five cups between meals…"

"Well what else am I supposed to bring you?"

"You needn't bring me anything." Thane ran a hand through her hair, brushing it back behind her ears and keeping his hand on her neck to pull her back to him. Shepard knew he hated her hair. A strand had caught on his scales once, and he'd held an irrational grudge ever since. But she liked the feel of his hands in her hair, his nails on her scalp, and so none of their gestures had changed. "Being here with me is enough."

Shepard laced their fingers together with one hand; something that had become so natural to her with four-fingers she imagined she'd have trouble holding a hand with five. Ignoring the simpering voice of reason in the back of her mind that was crying about the extensive rash she was going to have, she let the pads of her fingertips dance along his arm. The compact muscles beneath fascinated her, shifting in unfamiliar patterns she was determined to memorize eventually. The cost of doing so was, literally, an itchy trigger finger, which seemed a small price to pay considering it didn't deviate at all from her norm.

She already had his heartbeat down, the three-chambered heart that had made her panic the first time she'd rested her ear against his chest. She'd thought something had gone horribly wrong with his disease before he'd given her his 'dumbass' look and explained drell biology to her.

"Does working for Cerberus bother you?" Shepard drew a well of dark energy around her and wrapped it around his omnitool, lifting it back to his jacket pocket.

"I do not work for Cerberus, Siha, I work for you."

"But I work for Cerberus."

"Do you?" He caressed her hand reassuringly, "I was under the impression you answered to no one."

"How do you always know what to say?"

"Perhaps it's not that I know what to say, but what I have to say is what you wanted to hear."

"… did you just compliment yourself after I complimented you?"

"I'm merely trying to live up to your newest term of endearment."

"Watermelon lips?" Shepard chuckled, knowing full well he meant Narcissus. Thane rolled his eyes and kissed her forehead, going along with her joke while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge it.

They sat silently together for a short while, until Thane gave her shoulder a light squeeze. "What else troubles you?"

"Honestly? What doesn't?" Her palm was starting to sweat, but she refused to let go of his hand. In any other relationship, she would have let go without a second thought. She couldn't with Thane. They held hands throughout every conversation, and someday soon she wouldn't be able to. She'd be damned if she let a little discomfort or a bad rash get to her.

"Elaborate."

"Make me." Thane raised an eyeridge at her, which helped her realize how sultry she'd accidentally sounded. "I know I'm being watched on this mission. Cerberus, the Council, the Alliance… And that means they're watching my friends as well. The Man and Anderson made it perfectly clear with Ash. And Joker told me the Council kept an eye on everyone else. It's like the only way I watch everyone and make sure they're safe is by damning them to hell with me."

"All the more reason for you to fight to succeed."

"I know that. I was just… elaborating."

"With your memory, I can never be too sure, Siha. I felt the need to remind you."

"How kind of you," She drawled sarcastically.

"I know." Shepard snorted and shifted closer to him, scratching her face on his scales for her efforts. "Siha, while I'm glad you chose to confide that in me, I feel as though that wasn't what drove you to my quarters."

"I wanted to see you." Thane glanced down at her, but she was idly tracing the patterns on his scales. He wanted for her to continue, voice her unease about the upcoming mission, concern for a crewmember, distrust for the AI. Nothing came. None of her usual deeper motives he had to dredge forth. With a soft hum of surprise too low for her to hear, he rested his chin on her head and held her close.

"And I you."


	17. No Rest for the Wicked

**AN**: This is not necessarily set in the same universe as the other chapters. Or maybe?

* * *

No Rest for the Wicked

"I hope you appreciate the lengths I went through to find you." Admiral Steven Hackett laced his fingers together and folded his arms across the desk. It wasn't his desk. It wasn't even his room. This meeting was off the grid. Officially, it never happened.

"Just as I hope you appreciate I let you," came the dark reply. Hackett recognized it was blunt honesty. The man had precious little air left to waste it on threats.

"I find myself in a difficult position. As you can guess, there's someone who might need to be… taken care of." Dead eyes stared back at him. The man in front of him would not judge him, simply because he could not. He was empty, a blackhole in place of his soul that Hackett could pour all his doubts and uncertainties into, knowing they would simply vanish into that uncaring abyss. "I could give the order at any minute and have it carried out. Just so you understand, I don't need you to kill her."

"And yet, here I am."

"Yes… here you are. I need someone to watch her. I know what she's doing is important. Important enough to justify working with Cerberus. But it can't stay this way. The Alliance won't allow it; the Council won't allow it… I won't allow it. When she's finished, she has to cut her ties."

Those eyes were unnerving. They took in the evil of what Hackett was asking with an almost bored detachment. "This is not a typical contract."

"Shepard is not a typical woman."

"So I've heard."

"We need someone at her side till the end of the mission. If there's ever an indication she's been compromised… if she stops fighting for humanity, and starts fighting for Cerberus…" Hackett stopped. The requests to take Shepard into custody had been pouring in. He'd replied to each with a curt, 'Request denied,' but he couldn't ignore this problem forever. Not even for her. "It can't be for something she might do. For a side mission they ask her to handle. I won't accept anything that isn't clear cut. Black and white. Cerberus or the Alliance."

The man blinked his empty eyes once and tilted his head to the side, waiting for the Admiral to continue. He'd taken in all Hackett had said and let it vanish into the void of his soul. The evil in the room was far less stifling when it was concentrated in one man. Steven wasn't sure how he managed it, but knew it must have made him excel at his job.

"You understand why this can't go through the Alliance. Shepard needs my support on the home front. If they knew I approved something like this, I'd lose all credibility as her defense."

"I understand."

"She's collecting the best for this mission. I'm told that's you in this line of work. We've already arranged a high-profile hit for you, someone Shepard knows and the galaxy won't miss. If you make your presence known, she'll recruit you without a second thought."

"That seems unnecessarily forward. There are many who think death has taken me," He explained flatly, "I prefer such."

"Shepard is unnecessarily forward. This is the surest way to get her attention," Hackett couldn't tell if the man was convinced. He was impossible to read, either because of his alien personality or complete lack of one. "If you're uncomfortable with it, we can double your usual price."

"That is a great deal to offer for what may be little more than a precaution."

"Money's not a concern."

"No, it is not."

"We can meet whatever your cost is."

"You assume I kill for the credits?" His lips curled back into a vicious smirk, the first expression Hackett had seen on him since he'd walked in. "Admiral, I kill because it is an art, and I am a master."

"All the better for Shepard to be your masterpiece." The words tasted like poison and made bile curdle in the back of his throat, but Hackett forced himself to say them. He hated assassins. But what he hated more were proud assassins.

"Did you have a particular method in mind, should it come to that?" He asked with a malicious glint to his jet black eyes. In the very least, he'd implicitly accepted the contract.

"Quick and painless," Hackett glared, the first expression to cross his face since he'd met the assassin. He pulled his arms off the table and pushed himself to standing, signaling the end of their meeting. "Report what you can when Cerberus isn't monitoring you. The reports don't need to be regular."

"They will be." The alien stood and drew himself into the shadows. Though it seemed more accurate to say the shadows drew themselves around him.

"We'll wire half now, and half when the mission is complete. What you do afterwards isn't any of my concern, though if I'm not mistaken, there won't be much of an afterwards for you."

"Death comes for us all."

"John Donne." Hackett noted.

"Robert Bolt." The assassin corrected him.

"Quick and painless," Hackett repeated, as the finality of what he'd done began to close in around him.

The assassin gave a light nod to assure he'd heard him; "If it comes to it." He promised, then stopped at the door and gave a formal bow before he left. "I shall pray for you, Admiral."

* * *

**AN**: Part one? New story? Thoughts?


	18. Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek

Siha,

If you are reading this, I am waiting for you across the sea.

Or, I am waiting for you in our bed, and you are going through my things. Again.

In my thirty-three years as an assassin, I have never had a more worthy adversary. I have tracked and hid from the skilled to the exceptional, novices and masters, men and women, none of whom could ever compare to you.

I do not know how you gained access to my personal drive, just as I do not know how you gained access to my heart. I know only that neither still belongs to me. You will forgive my initial shock, as I had thought I would spend the last few months of my life safe in my solitude.

But you tore down the walls of my self-incarceration, only to place yourself at my side and build them back up. A man can be imprisoned in many things. A career. A lifestyle. A conversation. Love? Love is no prison but I would willingly chain my soul to yours, if I have not already.

I had not meant for that to sound so much like a proposal.

You will likely mock me for it the moment you find this letter, if you are not already reading the words as I write them.

I would not be surprised. You refuse to let me have my moment of selfish indulgence, despite the lengths I have gone through to obtain it. The letters on my personal drive, throughout our room, even the one I hid in Vakarian's e-mail, knowing you are the only one who ever checks it. You even managed to translate the letter in the bioluminescent sphere I gave you on Nyahir.

You will forgive me. I must find some way to occupy myself outside of desperate prayer and predictable memory, now that you deny me the honor of accompanying you on your missions. You must know you exaggerate Doctor Chakwas' report; I am still more than capable of serving in direct action.

You see how your absence affects me? I am arguing with you. While you are not even here.

I feel as though I should erase this, start again, and better phrase my words to remove such inadvertent slips of the tongue. I would, but I know you somehow have access to keystroke logs as well, and would read the original anyway.

Take the words as you will then, for while I may not have meant to say them, I meant them all the same. And if you do not find this in your archived e-mail until after I pass, hopefully it will be a comfort to you, my Siha.  
And if you find it before… well.

Nihil Sanctum, my love. The game is afoot.

Thane


End file.
